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Thursday, July 29, 2010
Wednesday, July 28, 2010
As President, Obama Takes On 'The View'
July 28,2010
SCOTT Neuman - npr
President Obama is making his debut on daytime talk TV this week, the first sitting U.S. president ever to make such an appearance, according to ABC.
And he's choosing to do it on The View, the morning show co-hosted by Barbara Walters, Whoopi Goldberg, Joy Behar Elisabeth Hasselbeck and Sherri Shepherd. They were quick to trumpet the news of Thursday's show — "He likes us, he really likes us," Behar gushed — and noted that Obama dropped by the set twice before he became president and that the first lady has also made an appearance.
So why this moment and this venue to make daytime television history?
It may well have something to do with soccer moms and the recent fiasco involving Shirley Sherrod, said David Zurawik, a media critic and commentator for The Baltimore Sun. While chatter on The View may run more toward Lindsay Lohan's mug shots or Madonna's influence on lingerie sales, the show sometimes touches on political topics and its core audience is the soccer-mom demographic so important to pollsters.
The hidden danger is that the hosts may find ways of asking a question that he's not expecting, and that could result in a gaffe.
- Eric Deggans, St. Petersburg Times media and TV critic
"It's a chance to address an audience that might be particularly offended by what happened with Sherrod," Zurawik said. Sherrod was forced to resign from the Department of Agriculture last week after a selectively edited Internet video clip wrongly implied that she had shown racial bias against a white farmer. She's since been asked to return, and Obama called her to personally express his regret over the rush to judgment.
"Here's a woman who was wronged by his administration," Zurawik said. "The View gives Obama an audience of women, although there are some men that watch."
White House spokesman Bill Burton told NPR that the president "likes to find opportunities where he is not just appearing on a traditional news program." He denied the appearance has anything to do with Sherrod.
But will the subject come up?
"You've seen the show," Burton said. "The women are very opinionated — they'll call the shots on what questions to ask."
The president's approval ratings of late aren't exactly at American Idol levels, and the Sherrod flap could make things worse. Sherrod appeared on The View last week to tell her side of the story.
Eric Deggans, TV and media critic at the St. Petersburg Times, said Obama's daytime turn also is a chance for him to bypass the Washington press corps and remind people that he's a regular guy.
"When you look at where Obama is now, it's not a good place. He has an array of media-savvy opponents, and he is struggling daily to get his message out," Deggans said.
"Obviously, he's not going to be grilled about the intricacies of financial reform," he noted. "But the hidden danger is that the hosts may find ways of asking a question that he's not expecting, and that could result in a gaffe."
It's happened before. Obama caught heat last year over a Special Olympics quip he made during a stint on The Tonight Show With Jay Leno.
When then-candidate Obama appeared on The View in 2008, Goldberg asked him to list the first three things he'd do as president. His answer: laying the groundwork to withdraw from Iraq, overhauling the health care system and addressing the energy crisis.
Obama can report tangible progress on at least two of those three issues, but given his sliding poll numbers, it's clear he has a lot of work to do. And as Zurawik said, "One appearance on daytime TV is not going to move the numbers that much."
Still, if he can win over Thursday's audience, it's a start.
--http://harlemvoiceblogs.blogspot.com
SCOTT Neuman - npr
President Obama is making his debut on daytime talk TV this week, the first sitting U.S. president ever to make such an appearance, according to ABC.
And he's choosing to do it on The View, the morning show co-hosted by Barbara Walters, Whoopi Goldberg, Joy Behar Elisabeth Hasselbeck and Sherri Shepherd. They were quick to trumpet the news of Thursday's show — "He likes us, he really likes us," Behar gushed — and noted that Obama dropped by the set twice before he became president and that the first lady has also made an appearance.
So why this moment and this venue to make daytime television history?
It may well have something to do with soccer moms and the recent fiasco involving Shirley Sherrod, said David Zurawik, a media critic and commentator for The Baltimore Sun. While chatter on The View may run more toward Lindsay Lohan's mug shots or Madonna's influence on lingerie sales, the show sometimes touches on political topics and its core audience is the soccer-mom demographic so important to pollsters.
The hidden danger is that the hosts may find ways of asking a question that he's not expecting, and that could result in a gaffe.
- Eric Deggans, St. Petersburg Times media and TV critic
"It's a chance to address an audience that might be particularly offended by what happened with Sherrod," Zurawik said. Sherrod was forced to resign from the Department of Agriculture last week after a selectively edited Internet video clip wrongly implied that she had shown racial bias against a white farmer. She's since been asked to return, and Obama called her to personally express his regret over the rush to judgment.
"Here's a woman who was wronged by his administration," Zurawik said. "The View gives Obama an audience of women, although there are some men that watch."
White House spokesman Bill Burton told NPR that the president "likes to find opportunities where he is not just appearing on a traditional news program." He denied the appearance has anything to do with Sherrod.
But will the subject come up?
"You've seen the show," Burton said. "The women are very opinionated — they'll call the shots on what questions to ask."
The president's approval ratings of late aren't exactly at American Idol levels, and the Sherrod flap could make things worse. Sherrod appeared on The View last week to tell her side of the story.
Eric Deggans, TV and media critic at the St. Petersburg Times, said Obama's daytime turn also is a chance for him to bypass the Washington press corps and remind people that he's a regular guy.
"When you look at where Obama is now, it's not a good place. He has an array of media-savvy opponents, and he is struggling daily to get his message out," Deggans said.
"Obviously, he's not going to be grilled about the intricacies of financial reform," he noted. "But the hidden danger is that the hosts may find ways of asking a question that he's not expecting, and that could result in a gaffe."
It's happened before. Obama caught heat last year over a Special Olympics quip he made during a stint on The Tonight Show With Jay Leno.
When then-candidate Obama appeared on The View in 2008, Goldberg asked him to list the first three things he'd do as president. His answer: laying the groundwork to withdraw from Iraq, overhauling the health care system and addressing the energy crisis.
Obama can report tangible progress on at least two of those three issues, but given his sliding poll numbers, it's clear he has a lot of work to do. And as Zurawik said, "One appearance on daytime TV is not going to move the numbers that much."
Still, if he can win over Thursday's audience, it's a start.
--http://harlemvoiceblogs.blogspot.com
Saturday, July 24, 2010
Friday, July 23, 2010
Wednesday, July 21, 2010
Tuesday, July 20, 2010
Shirley Sherrod: White House Forced My Resignation
July 20, 2010 3:31 PM
by Stephanie Condon--CBS NEWS-Politics
The Department of Agriculture employee who resigned after a controversy erupted over recent remarks she made is now saying that the White House forced her resignation.
Shirley Sherrod, the USDA's former director of rural development in Georgia, said USDA deputy undersecretary Cheryl Cook called her Monday and said the White House wanted her to resign, the Associated Press reports.
"They called me twice," Sherrod told the AP, noting that she was driving when she received the calls. "The last time they asked me to pull over the side of the road and submit my resignation on my Blackberry, and that's what I did."
Sherrod submitted her resignation after she became the focus of scrutiny from Fox News and conservative blogs over remarks she gave at an NAACP Freedom Fund Banquet on March 27. A video of a portion of her remarks were posted on a conservative blog, giving the impression that Sherrod admitted to discriminating against a white farmer as an employee of the USDA.
The comments were taken out of context, however. In her remarks that day, Sherrod was recounting a story that pre-dates her tenure at the USDA by more than two decades. Sherrod says in her story that Chapter 12 bankruptcy had just been enacted; Chapter 12 was instituted for family farmers in 1986, while Sherrod was appointed to head the USDA's Rural Development office in Georgia just last July. Furthermore, the point of Sherrod's story is that race is not an issue.
Sherrod has said the video excerpt did not include the full story of her relationship with the farmer, with whom she says she became friends after helping him avoid foreclosure.
Nevertheless, Sherrod says the White House pressed for her resignation. A USDA spokesman would not comment on whether the White House was involved, the AP reports.
Earlier today, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack released a statement saying he had accepted Sherrod's resignation, and added that the department has no tolerance for discrimination.
The NAACP on Monday released a statement condemning Sherrod's statements and saying the organization supported the USDA's position. The group, however, is now reportedly reconsidering its position.
---http://davidsradiotv2000.blogspot.com
by Stephanie Condon--CBS NEWS-Politics
The Department of Agriculture employee who resigned after a controversy erupted over recent remarks she made is now saying that the White House forced her resignation.
Shirley Sherrod, the USDA's former director of rural development in Georgia, said USDA deputy undersecretary Cheryl Cook called her Monday and said the White House wanted her to resign, the Associated Press reports.
"They called me twice," Sherrod told the AP, noting that she was driving when she received the calls. "The last time they asked me to pull over the side of the road and submit my resignation on my Blackberry, and that's what I did."
Sherrod submitted her resignation after she became the focus of scrutiny from Fox News and conservative blogs over remarks she gave at an NAACP Freedom Fund Banquet on March 27. A video of a portion of her remarks were posted on a conservative blog, giving the impression that Sherrod admitted to discriminating against a white farmer as an employee of the USDA.
The comments were taken out of context, however. In her remarks that day, Sherrod was recounting a story that pre-dates her tenure at the USDA by more than two decades. Sherrod says in her story that Chapter 12 bankruptcy had just been enacted; Chapter 12 was instituted for family farmers in 1986, while Sherrod was appointed to head the USDA's Rural Development office in Georgia just last July. Furthermore, the point of Sherrod's story is that race is not an issue.
Sherrod has said the video excerpt did not include the full story of her relationship with the farmer, with whom she says she became friends after helping him avoid foreclosure.
Nevertheless, Sherrod says the White House pressed for her resignation. A USDA spokesman would not comment on whether the White House was involved, the AP reports.
Earlier today, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack released a statement saying he had accepted Sherrod's resignation, and added that the department has no tolerance for discrimination.
The NAACP on Monday released a statement condemning Sherrod's statements and saying the organization supported the USDA's position. The group, however, is now reportedly reconsidering its position.
---http://davidsradiotv2000.blogspot.com
Sunday, July 18, 2010
Saturday, July 17, 2010
Friday, July 16, 2010
Paterson Signs Bill Limiting Stop-and-Frisk Data
July 16, 2010, 11:56 am
By AL BAKER AND COLIN MOYNIHAN---nytimes
Police officials in New York City can no longer electronically store the names and addresses of people stopped in the street to be questioned but found to have done nothing wrong, under a bill Gov. David A. Paterson signed into law on Friday.
At a signing ceremony in his Manhattan offices, Mr. Paterson ended a debate over the so-called stop-and-frisk database that had been raging for months and will fundamentally alter one of the Police Department’s chief crime-fighting strategies.
Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg and Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly have argued that the database, originally created to comply with a law passed by the City Council in 2001, was invaluable because detectives could quickly cull it for clues they needed to solve cases and make arrests.
Stripping the database of the names and addresses of those stopped would result in more crime victims, Mr. Kelly said, who met twice with the governor this month in hopes of persuading him to veto the bill.
But in the end, Mr. Paterson said, “my conscience will not let me veto this bill.”
“There is a principle – which is compatible with the presumption of innocence, and is deeply ingrained in our sense of justice – that individuals wrongly accused of a crime should suffer neither stigma nor adverse consequences by virtue of an arrest or criminal accusation not resulting in conviction,” Mr. Paterson said.
Mr. Paterson was joined by the sponsors of the bill – Assemblyman Hakeem Jeffries and Senator Eric L. Adams – who voiced their support for the governor’s decision and said the issue boiled down to finding a balance between law and order and civil liberties.
“This is a tremendous victory for all fair-minded New Yorkers,” Assemblyman Jeffries, a Brooklyn Democrat, said.
He said he believed that “reasonable efforts” to attain public safety must be “tempered by the privacy rights of law abiding people.”
Mr. Adams, a Brooklyn Democrat who had served 22 years on the Police Department before being elected to the Senate, said, “We do not allow the police in our country to hold the personal information of innocent people regardless of their ethnicity. This is wrong.”
Many pitched the debate forward – saying that the broader context of the department’s stop-and-frisk campaign could now be examined, with officials focusing on the “quality” of the street stops.
In 2009, the police documented 581,000 stops and have recorded nearly three million stops since 2004.
It is unclear how many of the people whose information is stored in the database were not fined or arrested after being stopped.
In a letter to Mr. Kelly on Thursday, Assemblyman Jeffries asked him to provide “the total number of people whose personal information is contained in the electronic N.Y.P.D. database.” He said he wanted to know how many of them had not been charged with a crime or issued a summons.
The new law applies only to the New York City Police Department, not agencies around the state. Under the law, the database would still include a record of the stop and catalog its points of data – including where and when the stop took place, the age and race of the person stopped and the reason that prompted the officer to make it.
Late on Thursday, as word circulated that Mr. Paterson would sign the bill, a spokesman for Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg expressed dismay.
“We’re disappointed that police officers will be denied an important tool they have been using to solve crimes and prevent others,” said the spokesman, Stu Loeser.
-----http://harlemcommunityorganizers.blogspot.com
By AL BAKER AND COLIN MOYNIHAN---nytimes
Police officials in New York City can no longer electronically store the names and addresses of people stopped in the street to be questioned but found to have done nothing wrong, under a bill Gov. David A. Paterson signed into law on Friday.
At a signing ceremony in his Manhattan offices, Mr. Paterson ended a debate over the so-called stop-and-frisk database that had been raging for months and will fundamentally alter one of the Police Department’s chief crime-fighting strategies.
Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg and Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly have argued that the database, originally created to comply with a law passed by the City Council in 2001, was invaluable because detectives could quickly cull it for clues they needed to solve cases and make arrests.
Stripping the database of the names and addresses of those stopped would result in more crime victims, Mr. Kelly said, who met twice with the governor this month in hopes of persuading him to veto the bill.
But in the end, Mr. Paterson said, “my conscience will not let me veto this bill.”
“There is a principle – which is compatible with the presumption of innocence, and is deeply ingrained in our sense of justice – that individuals wrongly accused of a crime should suffer neither stigma nor adverse consequences by virtue of an arrest or criminal accusation not resulting in conviction,” Mr. Paterson said.
Mr. Paterson was joined by the sponsors of the bill – Assemblyman Hakeem Jeffries and Senator Eric L. Adams – who voiced their support for the governor’s decision and said the issue boiled down to finding a balance between law and order and civil liberties.
“This is a tremendous victory for all fair-minded New Yorkers,” Assemblyman Jeffries, a Brooklyn Democrat, said.
He said he believed that “reasonable efforts” to attain public safety must be “tempered by the privacy rights of law abiding people.”
Mr. Adams, a Brooklyn Democrat who had served 22 years on the Police Department before being elected to the Senate, said, “We do not allow the police in our country to hold the personal information of innocent people regardless of their ethnicity. This is wrong.”
Many pitched the debate forward – saying that the broader context of the department’s stop-and-frisk campaign could now be examined, with officials focusing on the “quality” of the street stops.
In 2009, the police documented 581,000 stops and have recorded nearly three million stops since 2004.
It is unclear how many of the people whose information is stored in the database were not fined or arrested after being stopped.
In a letter to Mr. Kelly on Thursday, Assemblyman Jeffries asked him to provide “the total number of people whose personal information is contained in the electronic N.Y.P.D. database.” He said he wanted to know how many of them had not been charged with a crime or issued a summons.
The new law applies only to the New York City Police Department, not agencies around the state. Under the law, the database would still include a record of the stop and catalog its points of data – including where and when the stop took place, the age and race of the person stopped and the reason that prompted the officer to make it.
Late on Thursday, as word circulated that Mr. Paterson would sign the bill, a spokesman for Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg expressed dismay.
“We’re disappointed that police officers will be denied an important tool they have been using to solve crimes and prevent others,” said the spokesman, Stu Loeser.
-----http://harlemcommunityorganizers.blogspot.com
Monday, July 12, 2010
Sunday, July 11, 2010
Thursday, July 08, 2010
Monday, July 05, 2010
Congress should extend unemployment insurance instead of focusing on politics of spending
Posted on Fri, Jul. 02, 2010
Kansas City.Com ---Star
Two million Americans stand to lose their unemployment benefits because Republicans in Congress have suddenly decided deficit spending is a bad thing.
The refusal by enough GOP senators to move a measure forward doomed the latest attempt to extend modest benefits to the long-term unemployed. The Democrats, meanwhile, refused to shift previously committed stimulus dollars, a move that would have convinced two Republicans to back the plan and provide enough votes to block a Senate filibuster.
To Republicans, the vote was a clear political statement: “We’re against government spending.” To the Democrats, the other side’s refusal to compromise was also a clear political message: “The GOP is heartless.”
Playing politics with the lives of others is hardly victimless.
Americans remember Republicans not too long ago were all in favor of deficit spending to pay for tax cuts under George W. Bush. Those have meant $2.48 trillion less in federal coffers — with most of the money going into the pockets of the wealthiest 5 percent of Americans. Wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, also approved in the Bush years, have now cost more than $1 trillion.
The public also remembers, not so far back, Democrats were willing to move stimulus funds around to meet pressing needs. Auto bailout, anyone?
There are few things Congress can do that will have a more direct and positive effect on lives and the economy than extending unemployment benefits, as virtually every dollar allocated would quickly be spent on living expenses.
The long-term unemployed are not bums or “hobos,” as at least one GOP congressman has cruelly suggested. Many of them are people who worked for years and are desperate to work again but find themselves cast into a job market that has shed nearly 8 million positions in the last 2½ years.
Extending unemployment insurance until job prospects improve is the best thing Congress can do for them and for the nascent economic recovery.
---http://davidsradiotv2000.blogspot.com
Kansas City.Com ---Star
Two million Americans stand to lose their unemployment benefits because Republicans in Congress have suddenly decided deficit spending is a bad thing.
The refusal by enough GOP senators to move a measure forward doomed the latest attempt to extend modest benefits to the long-term unemployed. The Democrats, meanwhile, refused to shift previously committed stimulus dollars, a move that would have convinced two Republicans to back the plan and provide enough votes to block a Senate filibuster.
To Republicans, the vote was a clear political statement: “We’re against government spending.” To the Democrats, the other side’s refusal to compromise was also a clear political message: “The GOP is heartless.”
Playing politics with the lives of others is hardly victimless.
Americans remember Republicans not too long ago were all in favor of deficit spending to pay for tax cuts under George W. Bush. Those have meant $2.48 trillion less in federal coffers — with most of the money going into the pockets of the wealthiest 5 percent of Americans. Wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, also approved in the Bush years, have now cost more than $1 trillion.
The public also remembers, not so far back, Democrats were willing to move stimulus funds around to meet pressing needs. Auto bailout, anyone?
There are few things Congress can do that will have a more direct and positive effect on lives and the economy than extending unemployment benefits, as virtually every dollar allocated would quickly be spent on living expenses.
The long-term unemployed are not bums or “hobos,” as at least one GOP congressman has cruelly suggested. Many of them are people who worked for years and are desperate to work again but find themselves cast into a job market that has shed nearly 8 million positions in the last 2½ years.
Extending unemployment insurance until job prospects improve is the best thing Congress can do for them and for the nascent economic recovery.
---http://davidsradiotv2000.blogspot.com
Saturday, July 03, 2010
Monday, June 28, 2010
Blogosphere Harlem: Cigarette Tax Increased to Keep State Running
Blogosphere Harlem: Cigarette Tax Increased to Keep State Running: "Published: June 21, 2010 By NICHOLAS CONFESSORE ALBANY — New Yorkers who like to smoke will have to dig a little deeper to light up next mon..."
Blogosphere Harlem: High Court Ruling Seen as Challenge to N.Y. Gun Pe...
Blogosphere Harlem: High Court Ruling Seen as Challenge to N.Y. Gun Pe...: "Tuesday, June 29,2010 By Sean Gardiner and Michael Howard Saul A ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court giving federal judges the power to strike..."
Saturday, June 26, 2010
World Cup: U.S. loses to Ghana 2-1
June 26, 2010 3:59 PM
Chicago Tribune-Breaking Sports
Tribune News Services RUSTENBURG, South Africa -- Asamoah Gyan scored in the third minute of extra time to give Ghana a 2-1 win over the United States and a place in the World Cup quarterfinals.The teams were level at 1-1 through 90 minutes at Royal Bafokeng Stadium before Gyan ran onto a long pass and held off defenders Carlos Bocanegra and Jay DeMerit to smash a left-foot shot over goalkeeper Tim Howard from about 12 meters (yards).Ghana is only the third African team to make it through to the World Cup quarterfinals. It will meet Uruguay at Soccer City on Friday.
Kevin-Prince Boateng had put Ghana ahead in the fifth minute with a low shot from the edge of the area. He ran into space that opened as DeMerit kept retreating, then sent a ferocious shot that beat the diving Howard at his near post.Landon Donovan equalized with a 62nd-minute penalty after Jonathan Mensah got his second yellow card of the tournament, ruling him out of the quarterfinals, for swiping away Clint Dempsey's legs as he broke from deep.Donovan crouched in contemplation as he prepared to take the penalty kick, picking at the grass and ignoring the players around him before getting up to steer his kick in off the right-hand post.It was Donovan's U.S.-record fifth goal at the World Cup and 45th in international football. The United States threw Howard into attack for injury time at the end of the match, but Ghana goalkeeper Richard Kingson punched the ball away from a corner and the Americans never came any closer. Both teams created enough chances to have won the game in normal time, with Ghana dominating the first 45 minutes before United States coach Bob Bradley stabilized his team at halftime with the second of two substitutions.United States midfielder Ricardo Clark, recalled to the starting lineup in an attempt to add solidity to the American midfield, had given Ghana its first real opening when he gave the ball away under pressure in the center circle.Ghana defended in numbers to deny space for the likes of Donovan and Dempsey to attack from deep, and countered swiftly through Boateng, Dede Ayew, Kwadwo Asamoah and Gyan when it did win possession. Get the full story here.
--http://davidsradiotv2000.blogspot.com
Chicago Tribune-Breaking Sports
Tribune News Services RUSTENBURG, South Africa -- Asamoah Gyan scored in the third minute of extra time to give Ghana a 2-1 win over the United States and a place in the World Cup quarterfinals.The teams were level at 1-1 through 90 minutes at Royal Bafokeng Stadium before Gyan ran onto a long pass and held off defenders Carlos Bocanegra and Jay DeMerit to smash a left-foot shot over goalkeeper Tim Howard from about 12 meters (yards).Ghana is only the third African team to make it through to the World Cup quarterfinals. It will meet Uruguay at Soccer City on Friday.
Kevin-Prince Boateng had put Ghana ahead in the fifth minute with a low shot from the edge of the area. He ran into space that opened as DeMerit kept retreating, then sent a ferocious shot that beat the diving Howard at his near post.Landon Donovan equalized with a 62nd-minute penalty after Jonathan Mensah got his second yellow card of the tournament, ruling him out of the quarterfinals, for swiping away Clint Dempsey's legs as he broke from deep.Donovan crouched in contemplation as he prepared to take the penalty kick, picking at the grass and ignoring the players around him before getting up to steer his kick in off the right-hand post.It was Donovan's U.S.-record fifth goal at the World Cup and 45th in international football. The United States threw Howard into attack for injury time at the end of the match, but Ghana goalkeeper Richard Kingson punched the ball away from a corner and the Americans never came any closer. Both teams created enough chances to have won the game in normal time, with Ghana dominating the first 45 minutes before United States coach Bob Bradley stabilized his team at halftime with the second of two substitutions.United States midfielder Ricardo Clark, recalled to the starting lineup in an attempt to add solidity to the American midfield, had given Ghana its first real opening when he gave the ball away under pressure in the center circle.Ghana defended in numbers to deny space for the likes of Donovan and Dempsey to attack from deep, and countered swiftly through Boateng, Dede Ayew, Kwadwo Asamoah and Gyan when it did win possession. Get the full story here.
--http://davidsradiotv2000.blogspot.com
Thursday, June 24, 2010
Wednesday, June 23, 2010
Tuesday, June 22, 2010
Fate of McChrystal in doubt
6-22-2010
(Reuters) - The top U.S. general in Afghanistan faced possible removal on Tuesday after he and his aides were quoted in a magazine article mocking President Barack Obama and his top advisors.
General Stanley McChrystal, the U.S. and NATO commander in Afghanistan and the architect of Obama's war strategy, was summoned to Washington to explain his "enormous mistake in judgment" directly to the president, Obama's spokesman said.
Asked whether Obama was considering ousting the general, White House spokesman Robert Gibbs told reporters, "I would say all options are on the table."
McChrystal has apologized for the article, due to be published in Rolling Stone magazine on Friday.
It quotes McChrystal's aides calling one top Obama official a "clown" and another a "wounded animal." The general himself made belittling remarks about Vice President Joe Biden and the U.S. special envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan, Richard Holbrooke.
The Pentagon blasted McChrystal over his comments and stopped short of expressing confidence in his ability to continue leading the nearly nine-year-old war, seen by many analysts as in a stalemate with the Taliban.
Defense Secretary Robert Gates said McChrystal had "made a significant mistake and exercised poor judgment." Admiral Mike Mullen, who as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff is the top U.S. military officer, expressed his "deep disappointment."
"Gen. McChrystal has apologized to me and is similarly reaching out to others named in this article to apologize to them as well," Gates said in a statement.
McChrystal himself offered his "sincerest apology for this profile" before flying to Washington, where he will also meet with Gates on Wednesday.
"It was a mistake reflecting poor judgment and should never have happened," McChrystal said in a statement.
Afghan President Hamid Karzai fully backed the U.S. general and "believes he is the best commander the United States has sent to Afghanistan over the last nine years," a spokesman said.
Just six months ago, Obama backed McChrystal's request for more troops, escalating an unpopular conflict in which costs and casualties are soaring.
(Additional reporting by Will Dunham, Matt Spetalnick and Jeff Mason in Washington, David Fox and Jonathon Burch in Kabul; editing by Patricia Wilson and David Storey)
---Top aide to General McChrystal resigns
-davidsamuels7@gmail.com
(Reuters) - The top U.S. general in Afghanistan faced possible removal on Tuesday after he and his aides were quoted in a magazine article mocking President Barack Obama and his top advisors.
General Stanley McChrystal, the U.S. and NATO commander in Afghanistan and the architect of Obama's war strategy, was summoned to Washington to explain his "enormous mistake in judgment" directly to the president, Obama's spokesman said.
Asked whether Obama was considering ousting the general, White House spokesman Robert Gibbs told reporters, "I would say all options are on the table."
McChrystal has apologized for the article, due to be published in Rolling Stone magazine on Friday.
It quotes McChrystal's aides calling one top Obama official a "clown" and another a "wounded animal." The general himself made belittling remarks about Vice President Joe Biden and the U.S. special envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan, Richard Holbrooke.
The Pentagon blasted McChrystal over his comments and stopped short of expressing confidence in his ability to continue leading the nearly nine-year-old war, seen by many analysts as in a stalemate with the Taliban.
Defense Secretary Robert Gates said McChrystal had "made a significant mistake and exercised poor judgment." Admiral Mike Mullen, who as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff is the top U.S. military officer, expressed his "deep disappointment."
"Gen. McChrystal has apologized to me and is similarly reaching out to others named in this article to apologize to them as well," Gates said in a statement.
McChrystal himself offered his "sincerest apology for this profile" before flying to Washington, where he will also meet with Gates on Wednesday.
"It was a mistake reflecting poor judgment and should never have happened," McChrystal said in a statement.
Afghan President Hamid Karzai fully backed the U.S. general and "believes he is the best commander the United States has sent to Afghanistan over the last nine years," a spokesman said.
Just six months ago, Obama backed McChrystal's request for more troops, escalating an unpopular conflict in which costs and casualties are soaring.
(Additional reporting by Will Dunham, Matt Spetalnick and Jeff Mason in Washington, David Fox and Jonathon Burch in Kabul; editing by Patricia Wilson and David Storey)
---Top aide to General McChrystal resigns
-davidsamuels7@gmail.com
Monday, June 21, 2010
Friday, June 18, 2010
Thursday, June 17, 2010
Wednesday, June 16, 2010
World Cup Highlights
Soccer passion passed down
Today, June 16, 2010, 5:32:11 PM
Argentinian's explain how the passion for soccer is passed down from generation to generation.
Today, June 16, 2010, 5:32:11 PM
Argentinian's explain how the passion for soccer is passed down from generation to generation.
Tuesday, June 15, 2010
Monday, June 14, 2010
Apollo Theater Benefit and Awards
Aretha Franklin, Michael Jackson honored
Published : Monday, 14 Jun 2010, 11:24 PM EDT
MYFOXNY.COM - The iconic Apollo Theater in Harlem inducted Aretha Franklin and the late Michael Jackson into the Apollo Legends Hall of Fame on its special 2010 Benefit Concert and Awards Ceremony.
Hosted by comedian and Oscar-award winning actor Jamie Foxx, the ceremony also honored New Yorkers Mark Anthony and Jennifer Lopez with the Ruby Dee and Ossie Davis Arts and Humanitarian Award
This award, named after the late Ossie Davis and his wife, Ruby Dee, is given annually to a couple who embody a rarified command of their craft, a deep commitment to their community, and an unshakeable connection to each other and their family, according to the Apollo.
This event is the Apollo's largest annual fundraiser. Proceeds of the event benefit the Apollo Theater Foundation. Inc., which preserves and develops the Apollo Theater and its initiatives for performing artists, educational programs, and community outreach efforts in New York City.
Published : Monday, 14 Jun 2010, 11:24 PM EDT
MYFOXNY.COM - The iconic Apollo Theater in Harlem inducted Aretha Franklin and the late Michael Jackson into the Apollo Legends Hall of Fame on its special 2010 Benefit Concert and Awards Ceremony.
Hosted by comedian and Oscar-award winning actor Jamie Foxx, the ceremony also honored New Yorkers Mark Anthony and Jennifer Lopez with the Ruby Dee and Ossie Davis Arts and Humanitarian Award
This award, named after the late Ossie Davis and his wife, Ruby Dee, is given annually to a couple who embody a rarified command of their craft, a deep commitment to their community, and an unshakeable connection to each other and their family, according to the Apollo.
This event is the Apollo's largest annual fundraiser. Proceeds of the event benefit the Apollo Theater Foundation. Inc., which preserves and develops the Apollo Theater and its initiatives for performing artists, educational programs, and community outreach efforts in New York City.
Sunday, June 13, 2010
Ghana Gives Africa Its First Victory
By JEFFREY MARCUS
Published: June 13, 2010
PRETORIA, South Africa — Ghana and Serbia came into the opening game of Group D of the World Cup with different agendas.
Serbia aimed to erase the memory of its disappointing performance from four years ago in Germany, where it played with Montenegro, and was eliminated after three straight losses, including a 6-0 thrashing by Argentina.
Ghana, which had advanced to the Round of 16 in 2006, hoped to ride a wave of African support even deeper into this tournament, the first on its home continent.
It appeared the game was destined to be a scoreless draw, until a late penalty — the tournament’s first — gave Ghana the opening it needed in a 1-0 victory. The win was the first for an African team at this World Cup.
“We are so happy an African team won against a strong European team,” Ghana Coach Milovan Rajevac said. “We are happy if all of Africa is happy.”
In the 84th minute, with Ghana pressing a one-man advantage after Serbia’s center back Aleksandar Lukovic was sent off for receiving a second yellow card, Zdravko Kuzmanovic, a second-half substitute, hit the ball with his hand while leaping awkwardly to head a cross. The referee Héctor Baldassi from Argentina awarded the penalty kick and Asamoah Gyan smashed the ball to the right of goalkeeper Vladimir Stojkovic, to the delight of the vast majority of the 38,833 vocal fans in Loftus Versfeld Stadium. The stadium was the site of South Africa’s 1-0 victory over Sweden in 1999, its first win against a European opponent.
It capped a strong and ambitious effort by Ghana that left Rajevac, a Serbian, with conflicted emotions. He politely shook hands with Serbia’s coaching staff while his players celebrated on the field.
“For myself, my job, this is a great victory,” Rajevac said. “I’m sorry for the Serbian team. I love its players. I tried to perform my duties in a professional manner and it is very difficult to play against Serbia.”
He added, “I wish Serbia to attain 6 points in the next two games.”
Ghana controlled the ball and the pace of the game, though the teams shared possession almost equally. The Ghana players were quick and dynamic, showing keen passing, but lacked the strong final touch needed to score.
In the 15th minute, after sustained offensive pressure, Ghana had three good shots — two from Kwadwo Asamoah and one by Kevin-Prince Boateng — that were blocked well by the Serbian defense.
Boateng, Asamoah and Andre Ayew were strong on the left side of midfield in the first half, quickly moving the ball from Ghana’s defensive third into the attacking half of the field. Their probing passes tested a shaky Serbian backline.
Before the game, Lukovic said Serbia would concentrate on defense and show that it had shored up a backline that looked out of sorts in two pre-tournament exhibitions. Instead, Serbia was slow and predictable.
“During the game, I didn’t notice Ghana really had many opportunities to score before the penalty,” Serbia Coach Radomir Antic said. “We played the correct game during the first 45 minutes considering our opponent.”
Ghana had 13 shots to Serbia’s 10, but the Serbians conceded large swaths of green in the midfield, allowing Ghana’s outside players to advance up field.
Right back Branislav Ivanovic looked surprisingly overmatched, requiring help from Lukovic and Nemanja Vidic on a number of occasions in the first half. Ghana’s Ayew and Gyan were often able to run free.
Serbia was less aggressive on offense, preferring to have Dejan Stankovic and Nenad Milijas remain deep in midfield and send long balls to the tall forward Nikola Zigic to flick up the field with his head, or over the top of the defense for striker Marko Pantelic to run to. The approach failed. Serbia had only five shots in the first half, none of them a true threat to go in the net.
Ghana’s best chances came in the second half courtesy of Prince Tagoe. In the 54th minute he sent a lofting cross from the right side over the Serbian defense that met Ayew’s head, but went just wide. Moments later, Tagoe danced through two defenders, into the Serbian box. Ayew followed his cue, letting a shot go in the 56th minute, but the ball sailed high.
In the 60th minute, Gyan leaped high above the Serbia defenders to nod John Pantsil’s long throw-in off the post — surprising given the size of Serbia’s centerbacks Vidic and Lukovic.
Perhaps more stunning for Serbia was Lukovic’s lack of discipline. A lazy foul in the 74th minute earned him his second yellow card of the game and he was dismissed. Lukovic clearly held Gyan’s arm before the Ghana forward went down to the ground.
Eleven minutes later, Gyan converted the penalty kick to seal the game.
“Everybody is happy,” he said. “Not only Ghana, but the whole of Africa.”
---http://davidsradiotv2000.blogspot.com
Published: June 13, 2010
PRETORIA, South Africa — Ghana and Serbia came into the opening game of Group D of the World Cup with different agendas.
Serbia aimed to erase the memory of its disappointing performance from four years ago in Germany, where it played with Montenegro, and was eliminated after three straight losses, including a 6-0 thrashing by Argentina.
Ghana, which had advanced to the Round of 16 in 2006, hoped to ride a wave of African support even deeper into this tournament, the first on its home continent.
It appeared the game was destined to be a scoreless draw, until a late penalty — the tournament’s first — gave Ghana the opening it needed in a 1-0 victory. The win was the first for an African team at this World Cup.
“We are so happy an African team won against a strong European team,” Ghana Coach Milovan Rajevac said. “We are happy if all of Africa is happy.”
In the 84th minute, with Ghana pressing a one-man advantage after Serbia’s center back Aleksandar Lukovic was sent off for receiving a second yellow card, Zdravko Kuzmanovic, a second-half substitute, hit the ball with his hand while leaping awkwardly to head a cross. The referee Héctor Baldassi from Argentina awarded the penalty kick and Asamoah Gyan smashed the ball to the right of goalkeeper Vladimir Stojkovic, to the delight of the vast majority of the 38,833 vocal fans in Loftus Versfeld Stadium. The stadium was the site of South Africa’s 1-0 victory over Sweden in 1999, its first win against a European opponent.
It capped a strong and ambitious effort by Ghana that left Rajevac, a Serbian, with conflicted emotions. He politely shook hands with Serbia’s coaching staff while his players celebrated on the field.
“For myself, my job, this is a great victory,” Rajevac said. “I’m sorry for the Serbian team. I love its players. I tried to perform my duties in a professional manner and it is very difficult to play against Serbia.”
He added, “I wish Serbia to attain 6 points in the next two games.”
Ghana controlled the ball and the pace of the game, though the teams shared possession almost equally. The Ghana players were quick and dynamic, showing keen passing, but lacked the strong final touch needed to score.
In the 15th minute, after sustained offensive pressure, Ghana had three good shots — two from Kwadwo Asamoah and one by Kevin-Prince Boateng — that were blocked well by the Serbian defense.
Boateng, Asamoah and Andre Ayew were strong on the left side of midfield in the first half, quickly moving the ball from Ghana’s defensive third into the attacking half of the field. Their probing passes tested a shaky Serbian backline.
Before the game, Lukovic said Serbia would concentrate on defense and show that it had shored up a backline that looked out of sorts in two pre-tournament exhibitions. Instead, Serbia was slow and predictable.
“During the game, I didn’t notice Ghana really had many opportunities to score before the penalty,” Serbia Coach Radomir Antic said. “We played the correct game during the first 45 minutes considering our opponent.”
Ghana had 13 shots to Serbia’s 10, but the Serbians conceded large swaths of green in the midfield, allowing Ghana’s outside players to advance up field.
Right back Branislav Ivanovic looked surprisingly overmatched, requiring help from Lukovic and Nemanja Vidic on a number of occasions in the first half. Ghana’s Ayew and Gyan were often able to run free.
Serbia was less aggressive on offense, preferring to have Dejan Stankovic and Nenad Milijas remain deep in midfield and send long balls to the tall forward Nikola Zigic to flick up the field with his head, or over the top of the defense for striker Marko Pantelic to run to. The approach failed. Serbia had only five shots in the first half, none of them a true threat to go in the net.
Ghana’s best chances came in the second half courtesy of Prince Tagoe. In the 54th minute he sent a lofting cross from the right side over the Serbian defense that met Ayew’s head, but went just wide. Moments later, Tagoe danced through two defenders, into the Serbian box. Ayew followed his cue, letting a shot go in the 56th minute, but the ball sailed high.
In the 60th minute, Gyan leaped high above the Serbia defenders to nod John Pantsil’s long throw-in off the post — surprising given the size of Serbia’s centerbacks Vidic and Lukovic.
Perhaps more stunning for Serbia was Lukovic’s lack of discipline. A lazy foul in the 74th minute earned him his second yellow card of the game and he was dismissed. Lukovic clearly held Gyan’s arm before the Ghana forward went down to the ground.
Eleven minutes later, Gyan converted the penalty kick to seal the game.
“Everybody is happy,” he said. “Not only Ghana, but the whole of Africa.”
---http://davidsradiotv2000.blogspot.com
Tuesday, June 08, 2010
Monday, June 07, 2010
Saturday, June 05, 2010
Wednesday, June 02, 2010
Sunday, May 30, 2010
Thursday, May 27, 2010
Wednesday, May 26, 2010
Monday, May 24, 2010
Jury convicts man in NJ schoolyard triple slayings
By SAMANTHA HENRY (AP) 5 -24- 2010
NEWARK, N.J. — The first defendant to be tried for a triple schoolyard killing that jolted New Jersey's largest city into addressing its crime problem nearly three years ago was convicted on all counts Monday.
Rodolfo Godinez, a Nicaraguan who was one of six men and boys charged with the brutal slayings, was convicted on all 17 counts. A jury returned the verdict in state Superior Court after nearly four hours of deliberations.
The killings of Dashon Harvey, Iofemi Hightower and Terrance Aeriel spurred a wave of anti-crime measures in Newark.
A fourth victim survived and testified against Godinez. She is not being identified by The Associated Press because of sexual assault charges against two other defendants. All four victims were enrolled or about to be enrolled at Delaware State University.
Family members of the victims wept and rubbed one another's backs quietly as the verdict was read. Earlier, when it was announced the jury had reached a verdict, several of them had gasped and started clapping. The judge warned the gallery to stay calm once the verdict was read.
The three victims were found slumped against a wall of the playground, each having suffered a gunshot wound to the back of the head. Hightower and the survivor also were slashed with a machete.
Without a wealth of physical evidence tying Godinez to the scene — he left DNA on a beer bottle at the playground but wasn't tied to the gun or knife used in the attacks — prosecutors used statements Godinez made to police and to a jailhouse acquaintance that appeared to implicate him.
Before deliberations, state Superior Court Judge Michael Ravin instructed jurors that, under New Jersey's accomplice liability statute, they could find Godinez guilty of the murders even though there was no evidence presented that he pulled the trigger.
Godinez's attorney, Roy Greenman, had argued his client was at the scene but didn't take part in the attacks.
Godinez could face several life terms in prison at sentencing on July 8.
NEWARK, N.J. — The first defendant to be tried for a triple schoolyard killing that jolted New Jersey's largest city into addressing its crime problem nearly three years ago was convicted on all counts Monday.
Rodolfo Godinez, a Nicaraguan who was one of six men and boys charged with the brutal slayings, was convicted on all 17 counts. A jury returned the verdict in state Superior Court after nearly four hours of deliberations.
The killings of Dashon Harvey, Iofemi Hightower and Terrance Aeriel spurred a wave of anti-crime measures in Newark.
A fourth victim survived and testified against Godinez. She is not being identified by The Associated Press because of sexual assault charges against two other defendants. All four victims were enrolled or about to be enrolled at Delaware State University.
Family members of the victims wept and rubbed one another's backs quietly as the verdict was read. Earlier, when it was announced the jury had reached a verdict, several of them had gasped and started clapping. The judge warned the gallery to stay calm once the verdict was read.
The three victims were found slumped against a wall of the playground, each having suffered a gunshot wound to the back of the head. Hightower and the survivor also were slashed with a machete.
Without a wealth of physical evidence tying Godinez to the scene — he left DNA on a beer bottle at the playground but wasn't tied to the gun or knife used in the attacks — prosecutors used statements Godinez made to police and to a jailhouse acquaintance that appeared to implicate him.
Before deliberations, state Superior Court Judge Michael Ravin instructed jurors that, under New Jersey's accomplice liability statute, they could find Godinez guilty of the murders even though there was no evidence presented that he pulled the trigger.
Godinez's attorney, Roy Greenman, had argued his client was at the scene but didn't take part in the attacks.
Godinez could face several life terms in prison at sentencing on July 8.
Thursday, May 20, 2010
Monday, May 17, 2010
Justices Bar Life Terms for Youths Who Haven’t Killed
By ADAM LIPTAK
Published: May 17, 2010
WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Monday ruled that juveniles who commit crimes in which no one is killed may not be sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
The ruling expanded a principle the court has never endorsed outside the death penalty — that an entire class of offenders may be immune from a given form of punishment.
Five justices, in an opinion by Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, agreed that the Eighth Amendment’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment forbids sentences of life without parole as a categorical matter for juvenile offenders who do not participate in homicides.
“A state need not guarantee the offender eventual release,” Justice Kennedy wrote, “but if it imposes the sentence of life, it must provide him or her with some realistic opportunity to obtain release before the end of that term.”
Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr . endorsed only a case-by-case approach, but he voted with the majority in saying that the particular inmate in question had received a sentence so harsh that it violated the Constitution.
The case involved Terrance Graham, who in 2003, at age 16, helped rob a Jacksonville restaurant, during which an accomplice beat the manager with a steel bar. Mr. Graham was sentenced to a year in jail and three years’ probation for that crime.
The next year, at 17, Mr. Graham and two 20-year-old accomplices committed a home invasion robbery. In 2005, a judge sentenced Mr. Graham to life for violating his probation.
In the context of capital punishment, the Supreme Court has carved out categories of offenders and crimes that are not subject to the death penalty, including juvenile offenders and those who do not take a life. Monday’s decision applied those two decisions in Venn diagram fashion to life-without-parole sentences.
Justice Kennedy, who was joined by Justices John Paul Stevens, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen G. Breyer and Sonia Sotomayor, said both national and international consensuses supported the court’s ruling.
Justice Clarence Thomas, joined by Justices Antonin Scalia and Samuel A. Alito Jr., said the majority was wrong about the facts in both cases and wrong as a matter of principle to take account of the international opinion.
Thirty-seven states, the District of Columbia and the federal government have laws allowing life-without-parole sentences for juveniles convicted of nonhomicide offenses. That represents, Justice Thomas said, a super-majority of states in favor of the punishment.
Justice Kennedy responded that a study relied on by Mr. Graham and supplemented by the court’s own research located only 129 juvenile offenders convicted under such laws. Seventy-seven were in Florida, the rest in 10 other states. Those numbers, Justice Kennedy said, make the sentence “exceedingly rare” and demonstrate that “a national consensus has developed against it.”
Justice Kennedy added that the sentences at issue had been “rejected the world over.” (Indeed, only the United States and perhaps Israel, he said, impose the punishment even for homicides committed by juveniles.)
“The judgment of the world’s nations that a particular sentencing practice is inconsistent with basic principles of decency,” Justice Kennedy wrote, “demonstrates that the court’s rationale has respected reasoning to support it.”
Justice Thomas disputed Justice Kennedy’s math, saying 11 nations seem to allow the punishment in theory. More important, he said, “foreign laws and sentencing practices” are “irrelevant to the meaning of our Constitution.”
He added that most democracies around the world remain free to adopt the punishment should they wish to. “Starting today,” Justice Thomas wrote, “ours can count itself among the few in which judicial decree prevents voters from making that choice.”
Although the majority limited its decision to nonhomicide offenses, advocates may try to apply its logic more broadly to the some 2,000 inmates serving life-without-parole sentences for participating in killings at 17 or younger.
Justice Kennedy noted, for instance, that juveniles serving life will typically spend more years and a greater percentage of their lives in prison than people who commit the same crime later in life.
The case decided Monday, Graham v. Florida, No. 08-7412, was argued in November along with a companion case, Sullivan v Florida, No. 08-7621. The court declined to decide the second case, which involved Joe Sullivan, who raped a woman when he was 13.
Instead, the court dismissed the case as improvidently granted, probably because it was beset with procedural difficulties. Mr. Sullivan’s lawyer, Bryan Stevenson, said his client and everyone else in his situation would be entitled to challenge their sentences under the Graham decision.
-http://davidsradiotv2000.blogspot.com
Published: May 17, 2010
WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Monday ruled that juveniles who commit crimes in which no one is killed may not be sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
The ruling expanded a principle the court has never endorsed outside the death penalty — that an entire class of offenders may be immune from a given form of punishment.
Five justices, in an opinion by Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, agreed that the Eighth Amendment’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment forbids sentences of life without parole as a categorical matter for juvenile offenders who do not participate in homicides.
“A state need not guarantee the offender eventual release,” Justice Kennedy wrote, “but if it imposes the sentence of life, it must provide him or her with some realistic opportunity to obtain release before the end of that term.”
Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr . endorsed only a case-by-case approach, but he voted with the majority in saying that the particular inmate in question had received a sentence so harsh that it violated the Constitution.
The case involved Terrance Graham, who in 2003, at age 16, helped rob a Jacksonville restaurant, during which an accomplice beat the manager with a steel bar. Mr. Graham was sentenced to a year in jail and three years’ probation for that crime.
The next year, at 17, Mr. Graham and two 20-year-old accomplices committed a home invasion robbery. In 2005, a judge sentenced Mr. Graham to life for violating his probation.
In the context of capital punishment, the Supreme Court has carved out categories of offenders and crimes that are not subject to the death penalty, including juvenile offenders and those who do not take a life. Monday’s decision applied those two decisions in Venn diagram fashion to life-without-parole sentences.
Justice Kennedy, who was joined by Justices John Paul Stevens, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen G. Breyer and Sonia Sotomayor, said both national and international consensuses supported the court’s ruling.
Justice Clarence Thomas, joined by Justices Antonin Scalia and Samuel A. Alito Jr., said the majority was wrong about the facts in both cases and wrong as a matter of principle to take account of the international opinion.
Thirty-seven states, the District of Columbia and the federal government have laws allowing life-without-parole sentences for juveniles convicted of nonhomicide offenses. That represents, Justice Thomas said, a super-majority of states in favor of the punishment.
Justice Kennedy responded that a study relied on by Mr. Graham and supplemented by the court’s own research located only 129 juvenile offenders convicted under such laws. Seventy-seven were in Florida, the rest in 10 other states. Those numbers, Justice Kennedy said, make the sentence “exceedingly rare” and demonstrate that “a national consensus has developed against it.”
Justice Kennedy added that the sentences at issue had been “rejected the world over.” (Indeed, only the United States and perhaps Israel, he said, impose the punishment even for homicides committed by juveniles.)
“The judgment of the world’s nations that a particular sentencing practice is inconsistent with basic principles of decency,” Justice Kennedy wrote, “demonstrates that the court’s rationale has respected reasoning to support it.”
Justice Thomas disputed Justice Kennedy’s math, saying 11 nations seem to allow the punishment in theory. More important, he said, “foreign laws and sentencing practices” are “irrelevant to the meaning of our Constitution.”
He added that most democracies around the world remain free to adopt the punishment should they wish to. “Starting today,” Justice Thomas wrote, “ours can count itself among the few in which judicial decree prevents voters from making that choice.”
Although the majority limited its decision to nonhomicide offenses, advocates may try to apply its logic more broadly to the some 2,000 inmates serving life-without-parole sentences for participating in killings at 17 or younger.
Justice Kennedy noted, for instance, that juveniles serving life will typically spend more years and a greater percentage of their lives in prison than people who commit the same crime later in life.
The case decided Monday, Graham v. Florida, No. 08-7412, was argued in November along with a companion case, Sullivan v Florida, No. 08-7621. The court declined to decide the second case, which involved Joe Sullivan, who raped a woman when he was 13.
Instead, the court dismissed the case as improvidently granted, probably because it was beset with procedural difficulties. Mr. Sullivan’s lawyer, Bryan Stevenson, said his client and everyone else in his situation would be entitled to challenge their sentences under the Graham decision.
-http://davidsradiotv2000.blogspot.com
Sunday, May 16, 2010
Tube Catches ‘Some’ Oil From Leak
By SHAILA DEWAN May 16, 2010
May 16, 2010 nytimes.com
NEW ORLEANS, La. — An experimental attempt to stop an oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico experienced some limited success over the weekend, BP announced Sunday afternoon.
Engineers successfully inserted a tube into the damaged riser pipe from which some of the oil is spewing, capturing “some amounts of oil and gas” before the tube was dislodged, the announcement said. The tube was inspected and reinserted, BP said.
“While not collecting all of the leaking oil, this tool is an important step in reducing the amount of oil being released into Gulf waters,” the announcement said. It did not say why the tube had come dislodged or how much oil and gas were taken aboard the Discover Enterprise, the drill ship waiting to separate the oil, gas and water as it is siphoned off. The gas that reached the ship was burned using a flare system on board.
The tube is one of several proposed methods of stanching the flow of at least 210,000 gallons of oil a day into the Gulf, threatening marine life and sensitive wetlands and beaches in Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida. BP officials have emphasized that none of the techniques has been previously attempted at the depth of this leak, 5,000 feet below the surface.
Efforts to insert the tube, a five-foot section of pipe with a rubber seal designed to keep seawater out, into the broken riser pipe from which the majority of the oil is gushing, began on Friday using robotic submarines.
But the initial attempt to connect the mile-long pipe leading from the drill ship to the tube failed, and the device had to be brought back to the surface for adjustments.
“This is all part of reinventing technology,” said Tom Mueller, a BP spokesman, on Saturday. “It’s not what I’d call a problem — it’s what I’d call learning, reconfiguring, doing it again.”
BP still has an array of untested short-term options for reducing the flow, including a small “top hat” that could be placed over the leak, a “junk shot” that would involve plugging the blowout preventer at the well’s opening with debris like old tires, and a “top kill” that would pump mud and cement into the preventer in an attempt to seal the opening.
The long-term solution, already under way, is to drill two relief wells, a process that will not be completed until August, officials said.
May 16, 2010 nytimes.com
NEW ORLEANS, La. — An experimental attempt to stop an oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico experienced some limited success over the weekend, BP announced Sunday afternoon.
Engineers successfully inserted a tube into the damaged riser pipe from which some of the oil is spewing, capturing “some amounts of oil and gas” before the tube was dislodged, the announcement said. The tube was inspected and reinserted, BP said.
“While not collecting all of the leaking oil, this tool is an important step in reducing the amount of oil being released into Gulf waters,” the announcement said. It did not say why the tube had come dislodged or how much oil and gas were taken aboard the Discover Enterprise, the drill ship waiting to separate the oil, gas and water as it is siphoned off. The gas that reached the ship was burned using a flare system on board.
The tube is one of several proposed methods of stanching the flow of at least 210,000 gallons of oil a day into the Gulf, threatening marine life and sensitive wetlands and beaches in Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida. BP officials have emphasized that none of the techniques has been previously attempted at the depth of this leak, 5,000 feet below the surface.
Efforts to insert the tube, a five-foot section of pipe with a rubber seal designed to keep seawater out, into the broken riser pipe from which the majority of the oil is gushing, began on Friday using robotic submarines.
But the initial attempt to connect the mile-long pipe leading from the drill ship to the tube failed, and the device had to be brought back to the surface for adjustments.
“This is all part of reinventing technology,” said Tom Mueller, a BP spokesman, on Saturday. “It’s not what I’d call a problem — it’s what I’d call learning, reconfiguring, doing it again.”
BP still has an array of untested short-term options for reducing the flow, including a small “top hat” that could be placed over the leak, a “junk shot” that would involve plugging the blowout preventer at the well’s opening with debris like old tires, and a “top kill” that would pump mud and cement into the preventer in an attempt to seal the opening.
The long-term solution, already under way, is to drill two relief wells, a process that will not be completed until August, officials said.
Saturday, May 15, 2010
Illegal immigrant KSU student hopes to stay in U.S.
By Andria Simmon
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Friday 5-14-2010
A Kennesaw State University student on Friday criticized the national immigration system that brought her to the brink of deportation and remains a looming threat to the future of students like her who are illegally in America.
"I just hope for the best," said Jessica Colotl, a 21-year-old who entered the country illegally when she was 10. "I hope something positive comes out of this because we really need reform for this messed-up system."
The Mexico native gained national attention in March when she was arrested in Cobb County for a minor traffic violation on the KSU campus and narrowly avoided being deported. Colotl addressed about 50 supporters and reporters at a rally just hours after being released from jail on $2,500 bond on a second charge accusing her of lying about her address.
The young student is being held up as an example of what's wrong with the nation's immigration system by both pro-immigrant groups and opponents of illegal immigration.
Republican gubernatorial candidate Karen Handel said students who are undocumented should be expelled from colleges. State Sen. Eric Johnson, another GOP candidate for governor, said through a representative Friday that state and federal laws are very clear that those in this country illegally are not eligible for any public benefit, including postsecondary education.
"Especially at a time when they are raising tuition, we can’t afford to have illegal immigrants taking a taxpayer-subsidized spot in our colleges," Johnson spokesman Ben Fry said. "We must enforce the law."
Two other GOP candidates for governor, Insurance Commissioner John Oxendine and former U.S. Rep. Nathan Deal, also gave statements about Colotl's case. Oxendine called for the expulsion of all illegal immigrants in the higher education system, and Deal said current immigration law needs to be enforced.
Colotl said she is looking forward to graduation and hoping to avoid forced removal to the home country she barely remembers.
"If I were to be deported, I would have to start all over again," Colotl said. "I am just hoping for the best and hopefully immigration reform ... will help me."
Her criminal defense attorney, Chris Taylor, said someone with a 3.8 grade-point average coming out of high school is "the kind of person we want in our country."
The forum at Plaza Fiesta in Atlanta to address Colotl's case was organized by the American Civil Liberties Union, the Southern Center for Human Rights, the Georgia Association of Latino Elected Officials, the Southern Poverty Law Center and the Georgia Latino Alliance for Human Rights, all of whom have rallied to her cause. A criminal defense attorney and immigration lawyer also have taken her case for free.
Near the speaker's podium was a poster for the Georgia Latino Alliance for Human Rights featuring Colotl's image and the slogans "Education not deportation" and "I march for Jessica."
Colotl's case has prompted pro-immigrant and human rights organizations to renew calls for the termination of the 287(g) program, an agreement local law enforcement agencies, such as the Cobb Sheriff's Office, have with immigration officials to check the status of everyone taken into custody. Opponents say the program promotes racial profiling and tears apart families.
Colotl was handed over to immigration authorities following her first arrest under the 287(g) program. At the urging of KSU, Colotl's friends and advocacy groups, ICE agreed to defer her case for a year until she completed her degree. She was then released from a federal detention center in Alabama.
Colotl was released from jail about 11:40 a.m. Friday. Cobb County Sheriff Neil Warren secured a warrant Wednesday night to arrest Colotl, 21, on a felony charge alleging she made a false statement about her address on a jail booking form. A KSU officer had arrested Colotl in March on a charge of driving without a license.
A spokeswoman for Warren said he would be unavailable to comment about the rally for Colotl on Friday. She referred a reporter to a written statement Warren issued Thursday that said “it is sad that Ms. Colotl’s parents chose to enter the United States illegally and ultimately put her in this position.”
Warren said that his investigation revealed that she had never lived at the address listed on her booking records.
Taylor, Colotl's attorney, said that she had lived at the Duluth address as recently as November 2009 and her motor vehicle insurance and car registration paperwork were still being mailed there.
Colotl gave deputies her old address, Taylor said, because it matched her car insurance paperwork. On the same day, she also gave immigration enforcement officers her current address in Norcross. Sheriff's deputies should have known where to find her, Taylor said.
An ICE spokesman said Friday that the agency chose not to detain Colotl again following her second arrest. Her case will be reviewed again on its merits at the conclusion of the deferment period.
Colotl was accepted to KSU in 2006 as an in-state student, which was in keeping with the policy of the Board of Regents at the time. The following year, the rules were changed so that undocumented students could no longer receive in-state tuition, which costs about a quarter of out-of-state tuition.
Colotl was still paying in-state tuition up until her March arrest. That's when university officials learned she was an illegal immigrant, according to a statement KSU issued Friday. The university's administration said from now on she will be charged out-of-state tuition rates.
Chris Kuck, an Atlanta immigration attorney who is representing Colotl, said because she entered the country illegally as a minor, there is no path to legalization open to her. She has an academic scholarship to KSU, but she has not been receiving federal or state financial aid, including the merit-based HOPE scholarship.
While she had high enough grades for the HOPE scholarship, Kuck said she never applied. Only Georgia residents are eligible for the scholarship, which covers tuition and other expenses at public colleges.
“She’s not eligible for HOPE,” Kuck said. “You have to be a Georgia resident. She paid for it all on her own.”
Kuck said he is trying to get her a work permit, since her deferment status with ICE means she is technically authorized to be in the country now. If she gets a work permit, Colotl might again be eligible for in-state tuition, he said.
Staff writer Jim Galloway contributed to this article.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Friday 5-14-2010
A Kennesaw State University student on Friday criticized the national immigration system that brought her to the brink of deportation and remains a looming threat to the future of students like her who are illegally in America.
"I just hope for the best," said Jessica Colotl, a 21-year-old who entered the country illegally when she was 10. "I hope something positive comes out of this because we really need reform for this messed-up system."
The Mexico native gained national attention in March when she was arrested in Cobb County for a minor traffic violation on the KSU campus and narrowly avoided being deported. Colotl addressed about 50 supporters and reporters at a rally just hours after being released from jail on $2,500 bond on a second charge accusing her of lying about her address.
The young student is being held up as an example of what's wrong with the nation's immigration system by both pro-immigrant groups and opponents of illegal immigration.
Republican gubernatorial candidate Karen Handel said students who are undocumented should be expelled from colleges. State Sen. Eric Johnson, another GOP candidate for governor, said through a representative Friday that state and federal laws are very clear that those in this country illegally are not eligible for any public benefit, including postsecondary education.
"Especially at a time when they are raising tuition, we can’t afford to have illegal immigrants taking a taxpayer-subsidized spot in our colleges," Johnson spokesman Ben Fry said. "We must enforce the law."
Two other GOP candidates for governor, Insurance Commissioner John Oxendine and former U.S. Rep. Nathan Deal, also gave statements about Colotl's case. Oxendine called for the expulsion of all illegal immigrants in the higher education system, and Deal said current immigration law needs to be enforced.
Colotl said she is looking forward to graduation and hoping to avoid forced removal to the home country she barely remembers.
"If I were to be deported, I would have to start all over again," Colotl said. "I am just hoping for the best and hopefully immigration reform ... will help me."
Her criminal defense attorney, Chris Taylor, said someone with a 3.8 grade-point average coming out of high school is "the kind of person we want in our country."
The forum at Plaza Fiesta in Atlanta to address Colotl's case was organized by the American Civil Liberties Union, the Southern Center for Human Rights, the Georgia Association of Latino Elected Officials, the Southern Poverty Law Center and the Georgia Latino Alliance for Human Rights, all of whom have rallied to her cause. A criminal defense attorney and immigration lawyer also have taken her case for free.
Near the speaker's podium was a poster for the Georgia Latino Alliance for Human Rights featuring Colotl's image and the slogans "Education not deportation" and "I march for Jessica."
Colotl's case has prompted pro-immigrant and human rights organizations to renew calls for the termination of the 287(g) program, an agreement local law enforcement agencies, such as the Cobb Sheriff's Office, have with immigration officials to check the status of everyone taken into custody. Opponents say the program promotes racial profiling and tears apart families.
Colotl was handed over to immigration authorities following her first arrest under the 287(g) program. At the urging of KSU, Colotl's friends and advocacy groups, ICE agreed to defer her case for a year until she completed her degree. She was then released from a federal detention center in Alabama.
Colotl was released from jail about 11:40 a.m. Friday. Cobb County Sheriff Neil Warren secured a warrant Wednesday night to arrest Colotl, 21, on a felony charge alleging she made a false statement about her address on a jail booking form. A KSU officer had arrested Colotl in March on a charge of driving without a license.
A spokeswoman for Warren said he would be unavailable to comment about the rally for Colotl on Friday. She referred a reporter to a written statement Warren issued Thursday that said “it is sad that Ms. Colotl’s parents chose to enter the United States illegally and ultimately put her in this position.”
Warren said that his investigation revealed that she had never lived at the address listed on her booking records.
Taylor, Colotl's attorney, said that she had lived at the Duluth address as recently as November 2009 and her motor vehicle insurance and car registration paperwork were still being mailed there.
Colotl gave deputies her old address, Taylor said, because it matched her car insurance paperwork. On the same day, she also gave immigration enforcement officers her current address in Norcross. Sheriff's deputies should have known where to find her, Taylor said.
An ICE spokesman said Friday that the agency chose not to detain Colotl again following her second arrest. Her case will be reviewed again on its merits at the conclusion of the deferment period.
Colotl was accepted to KSU in 2006 as an in-state student, which was in keeping with the policy of the Board of Regents at the time. The following year, the rules were changed so that undocumented students could no longer receive in-state tuition, which costs about a quarter of out-of-state tuition.
Colotl was still paying in-state tuition up until her March arrest. That's when university officials learned she was an illegal immigrant, according to a statement KSU issued Friday. The university's administration said from now on she will be charged out-of-state tuition rates.
Chris Kuck, an Atlanta immigration attorney who is representing Colotl, said because she entered the country illegally as a minor, there is no path to legalization open to her. She has an academic scholarship to KSU, but she has not been receiving federal or state financial aid, including the merit-based HOPE scholarship.
While she had high enough grades for the HOPE scholarship, Kuck said she never applied. Only Georgia residents are eligible for the scholarship, which covers tuition and other expenses at public colleges.
“She’s not eligible for HOPE,” Kuck said. “You have to be a Georgia resident. She paid for it all on her own.”
Kuck said he is trying to get her a work permit, since her deferment status with ICE means she is technically authorized to be in the country now. If she gets a work permit, Colotl might again be eligible for in-state tuition, he said.
Staff writer Jim Galloway contributed to this article.
Tuesday, May 04, 2010
Monday, May 03, 2010
COPS: Times Square Car Bomber Got the Wrong Fertilizer
White Male in 40s Seen on Tape Near Site of Car Bomb Attempt
By RICHARD ESPOSITO, MICHAEL S. JAMES and DEAN SCHABNER
May 2, 2010 -ABC world news
The would-be car-bomber who left an SUV loaded with propane and gas cans, fireworks and timing devices on a Times Square street also had more than 100 pounds of fertilizer, but not the kind that would explode, police said today.
Police examine security footage of a man removing his shirt in Times Square.
Instead of ammonium nitrate, the kind of fertilizer used by Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh, the person who abandoned the van on the crowded New York City street had a metal gun locker full of a harmless fertilizer, New York City Police Department spokesman Paul Browne said.
While it is unknown who the potential bomber is, or the bomber's motive, officials told ABC, that if that person were not aware of the characteristics of the fertilizer it could point to the fact that the bomber did not know what he was doing.
Sources also told ABC News that the valves on the propane tanks were not open, which would have made it less likely that the gas inside would have ignited.
Police are looking for white male in his 40s who was seen leaving the area near the SUV and shedding a dark shirt, revealing a red shirt underneath, about a half block from where survellance cameras saw the vehicle entering Times Square at about 6:28 p.m. Saturday, NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly said.
The video of the possible suspect was expected to be released later today.
WATCH: Mayor on Time Square Bomb: 'We Are Very Lucky'
Napolitano on NY Bomb - no evidence "anything other than a one-off"
The individual was looking around in a furtive manner, Kelly said, but he also stressed that the behavior could be totally innocent.
At a Sunday afternoon press conference, Kelly said police would be reviewing hundreds of hours of videotape, and that police had identified the owner of the green Nissan Pathfinder but had not yet spoken to them.
Detectives are in Pennsylvania today meeting with tourists who think they may have captured a suspect on video.
Kelly said "no evidence" supports the Pakistani Taliban's claim of responsibilty for the bombing, but he said investigators had not yet ruled out either domestic or international motives for the attempted attack.
"Clearly it was the intent of whoever did this to cause mayhem and create casualties," Kelly said. "It was just a sober reminder that New York is clearly a target of people who want to come here and do us harm."
At about 2 p.m. Sunday, NYPD opened the 55-by-32-inch gun locker that was inside the SUV and found it contained eight bags of an unknown, fertilizer-like substance and an inverted pot with a "bird's nest" of wires.
There were three propane tanks next to the gun locker, two five-gallon jerry cans of gasoline, and a timing device, police officials said. There was no high-grade explosive, and the timing device was clocks attached to wires. Attached to the propane tanks were M88 fireworks, some of which had gone off, but without igniting the gas.
One alarm clock appeared to be wired into the gun locker. Another alarm clock was wired to a can with up to 30 M88 firecrackers resting between the cans of gasoline.
Kelly said it was too early to determine whether the device was crude or not.
-davidsamuels7@gmIL.COM
By RICHARD ESPOSITO, MICHAEL S. JAMES and DEAN SCHABNER
May 2, 2010 -ABC world news
The would-be car-bomber who left an SUV loaded with propane and gas cans, fireworks and timing devices on a Times Square street also had more than 100 pounds of fertilizer, but not the kind that would explode, police said today.
Police examine security footage of a man removing his shirt in Times Square.
Instead of ammonium nitrate, the kind of fertilizer used by Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh, the person who abandoned the van on the crowded New York City street had a metal gun locker full of a harmless fertilizer, New York City Police Department spokesman Paul Browne said.
While it is unknown who the potential bomber is, or the bomber's motive, officials told ABC, that if that person were not aware of the characteristics of the fertilizer it could point to the fact that the bomber did not know what he was doing.
Sources also told ABC News that the valves on the propane tanks were not open, which would have made it less likely that the gas inside would have ignited.
Police are looking for white male in his 40s who was seen leaving the area near the SUV and shedding a dark shirt, revealing a red shirt underneath, about a half block from where survellance cameras saw the vehicle entering Times Square at about 6:28 p.m. Saturday, NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly said.
The video of the possible suspect was expected to be released later today.
WATCH: Mayor on Time Square Bomb: 'We Are Very Lucky'
Napolitano on NY Bomb - no evidence "anything other than a one-off"
The individual was looking around in a furtive manner, Kelly said, but he also stressed that the behavior could be totally innocent.
At a Sunday afternoon press conference, Kelly said police would be reviewing hundreds of hours of videotape, and that police had identified the owner of the green Nissan Pathfinder but had not yet spoken to them.
Detectives are in Pennsylvania today meeting with tourists who think they may have captured a suspect on video.
Kelly said "no evidence" supports the Pakistani Taliban's claim of responsibilty for the bombing, but he said investigators had not yet ruled out either domestic or international motives for the attempted attack.
"Clearly it was the intent of whoever did this to cause mayhem and create casualties," Kelly said. "It was just a sober reminder that New York is clearly a target of people who want to come here and do us harm."
At about 2 p.m. Sunday, NYPD opened the 55-by-32-inch gun locker that was inside the SUV and found it contained eight bags of an unknown, fertilizer-like substance and an inverted pot with a "bird's nest" of wires.
There were three propane tanks next to the gun locker, two five-gallon jerry cans of gasoline, and a timing device, police officials said. There was no high-grade explosive, and the timing device was clocks attached to wires. Attached to the propane tanks were M88 fireworks, some of which had gone off, but without igniting the gas.
One alarm clock appeared to be wired into the gun locker. Another alarm clock was wired to a can with up to 30 M88 firecrackers resting between the cans of gasoline.
Kelly said it was too early to determine whether the device was crude or not.
-davidsamuels7@gmIL.COM
Thursday, April 29, 2010
Obama praises Dorothy Height as 'godmother of civil rights'
By Krissah Thompson
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, April 29, 2010; 1:02 PM
Civil rights icon Dorothy Height's eulogy was the third that President Obama has delivered since taking office. The others were for the late Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) and the miners who died this month in a West Virginia mine collapse.
Kennedy's funeral allowed the president to embrace the senator's legacy and pay homage to a key supporter. Honoring the miners enabled the president to connect with a suffering working-class community and show empathy for a bloc that did not back him at the polls.
Height's services were different, packed with both historical references and light moments. Before taking the pulpit to speak, Obama sat next to his wife, bobbing his head as gospel artist BeBe Winans sang "Stand." Obama smiled as he listened to friends tell stories about Height daring to play basketball for her school team long before it was acceptable for women to do so.
Poet Maya Angelou offered a reading and Camille Cosby also paid tribute to Height, who led the National Council of Negro Women for decades and marched with the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.
Obama praised Height as the "godmother of civil rights," becoming a stalwart of the movement even at personal risk. He said she "deserves a place" in our history books and America's memory and noted that anyone who had lived long enough to have an 88-year old nephew had "lived a full life."
Height was 98 when she died last week.
Obama spoke of the period in which Height was raised, when lynching was still commonplace, black people were legally denied opportunities and slavery was still a fairly recent memory for some.
Then he placed himself as an heir of Height's work, as he has often done, thanking civil rights leaders for being the "Moses generation" that led their people out of the desert. Obama refers to his generation as the "Joshua" generation, referring to the biblical successor to Moses, leading his people to the promised land.
"It's because of her that Michelle and I are here," Obama said to applause from those who had gathered to honor Height.
--davidradiotv2000@yahoo.com
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, April 29, 2010; 1:02 PM
Civil rights icon Dorothy Height's eulogy was the third that President Obama has delivered since taking office. The others were for the late Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) and the miners who died this month in a West Virginia mine collapse.
Kennedy's funeral allowed the president to embrace the senator's legacy and pay homage to a key supporter. Honoring the miners enabled the president to connect with a suffering working-class community and show empathy for a bloc that did not back him at the polls.
Height's services were different, packed with both historical references and light moments. Before taking the pulpit to speak, Obama sat next to his wife, bobbing his head as gospel artist BeBe Winans sang "Stand." Obama smiled as he listened to friends tell stories about Height daring to play basketball for her school team long before it was acceptable for women to do so.
Poet Maya Angelou offered a reading and Camille Cosby also paid tribute to Height, who led the National Council of Negro Women for decades and marched with the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.
Obama praised Height as the "godmother of civil rights," becoming a stalwart of the movement even at personal risk. He said she "deserves a place" in our history books and America's memory and noted that anyone who had lived long enough to have an 88-year old nephew had "lived a full life."
Height was 98 when she died last week.
Obama spoke of the period in which Height was raised, when lynching was still commonplace, black people were legally denied opportunities and slavery was still a fairly recent memory for some.
Then he placed himself as an heir of Height's work, as he has often done, thanking civil rights leaders for being the "Moses generation" that led their people out of the desert. Obama refers to his generation as the "Joshua" generation, referring to the biblical successor to Moses, leading his people to the promised land.
"It's because of her that Michelle and I are here," Obama said to applause from those who had gathered to honor Height.
--davidradiotv2000@yahoo.com
Sunday, April 18, 2010
Daily Calcium and Vitamins Linked to Lower Breast Cancer Risk
April 18, 2010, 2:01 PM EDT
By Ellen Gibson
April 18 (Bloomberg) -- Calcium doesn’t just build strong bones, it may fight cancer too, a study said.
Researchers at the Ponce School of Medicine in Puerto Rico reported that women who took calcium had a 40 percent lower risk of getting breast cancer, while those getting multivitamins showed a 30 percent reduction in risk. The new findings, from a study of 744 women, were presented today at the meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research in Washington.
The data contradict results of a December 2008 trial that showed no reduction in cancer risk from vitamin supplements. The scientists attributed the calcium benefit seen in today’s study to its effect on what they called DNA repair capacity -- the biological process by which cells patch up damaged DNA that otherwise may cause cancer. Today’s report suggests women may boost their cellular defenses with dietary changes and long-term use of supplements, they said.
“The importance of this finding is that now we can monitor breast-cancer risk using DNA repair capacity,” said Manuel Bayona, a professor of biostatistics and epidemiology at Ponce School of Medicine and an author of the paper. “We believe that all women should be taking vitamins and supplements. Now we can tell if that regimen is really doing its work in reducing the risk.”
A good analogy, Bayona said, is the management of heart disease. Just as doctors track patients’ cholesterol and modify it with changes in diet or drugs, they could use blood tests to monitor the DNA repair ability of women at elevated risk for breast cancer and tweak it using dietary supplements.
Vitamin Intake
The study included 278 women with breast cancer and 466 healthy controls. They were given a questionnaire that included several questions about their current and past intake of specific vitamins and minerals. The researchers also took blood samples to measure DNA repair capacity, and the cancer patients were compared with the controls on several dimensions.
The researchers said that the protective effect of calcium is due to its impact on DNA repair. Previous studies have demonstrated calcium’s cancer-blocking benefit without explaining the mechanism of action. A study in June 2007 in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition from researchers at Creighton University School of Medicine found that women taking calcium and vitamin D showed a 60 percent reduction in cancer risk.
Repairing Damage
The relationship between vitamin supplements and cancer risk is more complicated. Vitamins prevent and repair the cancer-causing damage done by free radicals, the highly reactive atoms that can wreak havoc on cells, according to Jaime Matta, a professor of pharmacology and toxicology at Ponce School of Medicine and a co-author of the study.
Some recent research suggests that vitamin supplements have no protective power against cancer. One study of 7,627 women in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute in December 2008 found that women who took vitamins C and E and beta carotene had the same risk of cancer diagnosis and death as those who didn’t. Research published in the Journal of the American Medical Association in January 2009 showed that vitamin E may raise the risk of prostate cancer.
In today’s study, other factors found to be associated with higher rates of breast cancer were older age, a family history of breast cancer, and no breastfeeding, according to the paper.
Daily Regimen
In follow-up research, the scientists will try to find the ideal daily vitamin regimen for a woman, according to her age and other characteristics, Bayona said in a telephone interview on April 12. He plans to ask more detailed questions about participants’ diets and vitamin intake and to take blood samples to confirm the levels of different nutrients in their bodies.
“People tend to be on the very low end of antioxidant and vitamin intake from veggies and fruit,” Matta said in an interview. “The good thing about taking vitamins is that there’s no downside in terms of risk. This opens the door to very cost-effective prevention.”
The research was funded by the National Cancer Institute’s Center to Reduce Health Disparities in Rockville, Maryland, and the National Institute of Health’s Minority Biomedical Research Support program in Bethesda, Maryland.
--Editors: Angela Zimm, Donna Alvarado
To contact the reporters on this story: Ellen Gibson in New York at egibson9@bloomberg.net.
.davidradiotv2000@yahoo.com
By Ellen Gibson
April 18 (Bloomberg) -- Calcium doesn’t just build strong bones, it may fight cancer too, a study said.
Researchers at the Ponce School of Medicine in Puerto Rico reported that women who took calcium had a 40 percent lower risk of getting breast cancer, while those getting multivitamins showed a 30 percent reduction in risk. The new findings, from a study of 744 women, were presented today at the meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research in Washington.
The data contradict results of a December 2008 trial that showed no reduction in cancer risk from vitamin supplements. The scientists attributed the calcium benefit seen in today’s study to its effect on what they called DNA repair capacity -- the biological process by which cells patch up damaged DNA that otherwise may cause cancer. Today’s report suggests women may boost their cellular defenses with dietary changes and long-term use of supplements, they said.
“The importance of this finding is that now we can monitor breast-cancer risk using DNA repair capacity,” said Manuel Bayona, a professor of biostatistics and epidemiology at Ponce School of Medicine and an author of the paper. “We believe that all women should be taking vitamins and supplements. Now we can tell if that regimen is really doing its work in reducing the risk.”
A good analogy, Bayona said, is the management of heart disease. Just as doctors track patients’ cholesterol and modify it with changes in diet or drugs, they could use blood tests to monitor the DNA repair ability of women at elevated risk for breast cancer and tweak it using dietary supplements.
Vitamin Intake
The study included 278 women with breast cancer and 466 healthy controls. They were given a questionnaire that included several questions about their current and past intake of specific vitamins and minerals. The researchers also took blood samples to measure DNA repair capacity, and the cancer patients were compared with the controls on several dimensions.
The researchers said that the protective effect of calcium is due to its impact on DNA repair. Previous studies have demonstrated calcium’s cancer-blocking benefit without explaining the mechanism of action. A study in June 2007 in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition from researchers at Creighton University School of Medicine found that women taking calcium and vitamin D showed a 60 percent reduction in cancer risk.
Repairing Damage
The relationship between vitamin supplements and cancer risk is more complicated. Vitamins prevent and repair the cancer-causing damage done by free radicals, the highly reactive atoms that can wreak havoc on cells, according to Jaime Matta, a professor of pharmacology and toxicology at Ponce School of Medicine and a co-author of the study.
Some recent research suggests that vitamin supplements have no protective power against cancer. One study of 7,627 women in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute in December 2008 found that women who took vitamins C and E and beta carotene had the same risk of cancer diagnosis and death as those who didn’t. Research published in the Journal of the American Medical Association in January 2009 showed that vitamin E may raise the risk of prostate cancer.
In today’s study, other factors found to be associated with higher rates of breast cancer were older age, a family history of breast cancer, and no breastfeeding, according to the paper.
Daily Regimen
In follow-up research, the scientists will try to find the ideal daily vitamin regimen for a woman, according to her age and other characteristics, Bayona said in a telephone interview on April 12. He plans to ask more detailed questions about participants’ diets and vitamin intake and to take blood samples to confirm the levels of different nutrients in their bodies.
“People tend to be on the very low end of antioxidant and vitamin intake from veggies and fruit,” Matta said in an interview. “The good thing about taking vitamins is that there’s no downside in terms of risk. This opens the door to very cost-effective prevention.”
The research was funded by the National Cancer Institute’s Center to Reduce Health Disparities in Rockville, Maryland, and the National Institute of Health’s Minority Biomedical Research Support program in Bethesda, Maryland.
--Editors: Angela Zimm, Donna Alvarado
To contact the reporters on this story: Ellen Gibson in New York at egibson9@bloomberg.net.
.davidradiotv2000@yahoo.com
Monday, April 12, 2010
Did you mail your 2010 Census Form back ?
- By David Samuels---4-12-2010
- If we don't know how many school kids there are.
- How do we know how many classrooms we need ?
- When you answer 10 simple questions
- You can help our community for the next 10 years.
- -- It's in your hands
- We can't move forward until you mail it back.
- United States
- Census 2010
- It's in your hands
- 2010 Census.gov ---------http://davidsradiotv2000.blogspot.com/
Saturday, April 10, 2010
Monday, April 05, 2010
Wednesday, March 31, 2010
Facebook Flub Leaks Private E-mail Addresses
Brennon Slattery--Mar 31, 2010 6:39 am
Today @ PCWorld
Private e-mail addresses that many Facebook users wanted to keep hidden were revealed publicly last night on a multitude of Facebook profiles, Gawker reports. The glitch lasted about 30 minutes before Facebook sealed the gap.
An anonymous tipster altered Gawker of the breach in an expletive-riddled message: "6:46PM: I cannot [bleeping] believe it. Everybody's email has been turned on to the public for at least the past 30 min. I tried going into my account to remove my email b/c I have an issue with a crazed stalker. But I wasn't able to. God I [bleeping] hate FB!! When will they ever learn?!"
It might be that Facebook's recently proposed changes to its privacy settings could be to blame for the hiccup. PC World writer Paul Suarez reported that "One of those changes [to Facebook's Privacy Policy and Statement of Rights and Responsibilities] would make it possible for Facebook to send your name, photo, friend list, and any public information about you and your friends to preapproved third-party Web sites." A slight tweak to broadcasting profile information could have resulted in this embarrassing flub.
Facebook desperately wants to be known as a site where users can expect a reasonable amount of privacy, but sometimes this isn't the case. Briefings of previous mistakes make it clear that Facebook has a lot of work to do, possibly at the risk of tarnishing its original smiles and hugs philosophy. Thankfully this most recent trip-up only lasted approximately 30 minutes; any longer would have spelled disaster.
-http://davidsradiotv2000.blogspot.com/
Today @ PCWorld
Private e-mail addresses that many Facebook users wanted to keep hidden were revealed publicly last night on a multitude of Facebook profiles, Gawker reports. The glitch lasted about 30 minutes before Facebook sealed the gap.
An anonymous tipster altered Gawker of the breach in an expletive-riddled message: "6:46PM: I cannot [bleeping] believe it. Everybody's email has been turned on to the public for at least the past 30 min. I tried going into my account to remove my email b/c I have an issue with a crazed stalker. But I wasn't able to. God I [bleeping] hate FB!! When will they ever learn?!"
It might be that Facebook's recently proposed changes to its privacy settings could be to blame for the hiccup. PC World writer Paul Suarez reported that "One of those changes [to Facebook's Privacy Policy and Statement of Rights and Responsibilities] would make it possible for Facebook to send your name, photo, friend list, and any public information about you and your friends to preapproved third-party Web sites." A slight tweak to broadcasting profile information could have resulted in this embarrassing flub.
Facebook desperately wants to be known as a site where users can expect a reasonable amount of privacy, but sometimes this isn't the case. Briefings of previous mistakes make it clear that Facebook has a lot of work to do, possibly at the risk of tarnishing its original smiles and hugs philosophy. Thankfully this most recent trip-up only lasted approximately 30 minutes; any longer would have spelled disaster.
-http://davidsradiotv2000.blogspot.com/
Sunday, March 28, 2010
President Obama addresses US troops in Afghanistan
Sunday, 28 March 2010 20:48 UK
BBC NEWS
US President Barack Obama has addressed American troops serving in Afghanistan during his first visit to the country.
He told them there was "no visit I consider more important than this one", thanking them for their hard work, as well as paying tribute to the Afghan forces training and working with them.
Earlier he met President Hamid Karzai, saying he wanted to see continued progress on Afghan efforts to tackle corruption and drug-trafficking.
READ MORE: Obama on first Afghanistan visit
-http://davidsradiotv2000.blogspot.com
BBC NEWS
US President Barack Obama has addressed American troops serving in Afghanistan during his first visit to the country.
He told them there was "no visit I consider more important than this one", thanking them for their hard work, as well as paying tribute to the Afghan forces training and working with them.
Earlier he met President Hamid Karzai, saying he wanted to see continued progress on Afghan efforts to tackle corruption and drug-trafficking.
READ MORE: Obama on first Afghanistan visit
-http://davidsradiotv2000.blogspot.com
Monday, March 22, 2010
Thank you, David, This is what change looks like
Thank you, David1 message
Barack Obama
Sun, Mar 21, 2010 at 9:13 PM
Reply-To: info@barackobama.com
To: David Samuels
David --For the first time in our nation's history, Congress has passed comprehensive health care reform. America waited a hundred years and fought for decades to reach this moment. Tonight, thanks to you, we are finally here.Consider the staggering scope of what you have just accomplished:Because of you, every American will finally be guaranteed high quality, affordable health care coverage.Every American will be covered under the toughest patient protections in history. Arbitrary premium hikes, insurance cancellations, and discrimination against pre-existing conditions will now be gone forever.And we'll finally start reducing the cost of care -- creating millions of jobs, preventing families and businesses from plunging into bankruptcy, and removing over a trillion dollars of debt from the backs of our children.But the victory that matters most tonight goes beyond the laws and far past the numbers.It is the peace of mind enjoyed by every American, no longer one injury or illness away from catastrophe.It is the workers and entrepreneurs who are now freed to pursue their slice of the American dream without fear of losing coverage or facing a crippling bill.And it is the immeasurable joy of families in every part of this great nation, living happier, healthier lives together because they can finally receive the vital care they need.This is what change looks like.My gratitude tonight is profound. I am thankful for those in past generations whose heroic efforts brought this great goal within reach for our times. I am thankful for the members of Congress whose months of effort and brave votes made it possible to take this final step. But most of all, I am thankful for you.This day is not the end of this journey. Much hard work remains, and we have a solemn responsibility to do it right. But we can face that work together with the confidence of those who have moved mountains.Our journey began three years ago, driven by a shared belief that fundamental change is indeed still possible. We have worked hard together every day since to deliver on that belief.We have shared moments of tremendous hope, and we've faced setbacks and doubt. We have all been forced to ask if our politics had simply become too polarized and too short-sighted to meet the pressing challenges of our time. This struggle became a test of whether the American people could still rally together when the cause was right -- and actually create the change we believe in.Tonight, thanks to your mighty efforts, the answer is indisputable: Yes we can.Thank you,President Barack Obama
---http://davidsradiotv2000.blogspot.com
Barack Obama
Sun, Mar 21, 2010 at 9:13 PM
Reply-To: info@barackobama.com
To: David Samuels
David --For the first time in our nation's history, Congress has passed comprehensive health care reform. America waited a hundred years and fought for decades to reach this moment. Tonight, thanks to you, we are finally here.Consider the staggering scope of what you have just accomplished:Because of you, every American will finally be guaranteed high quality, affordable health care coverage.Every American will be covered under the toughest patient protections in history. Arbitrary premium hikes, insurance cancellations, and discrimination against pre-existing conditions will now be gone forever.And we'll finally start reducing the cost of care -- creating millions of jobs, preventing families and businesses from plunging into bankruptcy, and removing over a trillion dollars of debt from the backs of our children.But the victory that matters most tonight goes beyond the laws and far past the numbers.It is the peace of mind enjoyed by every American, no longer one injury or illness away from catastrophe.It is the workers and entrepreneurs who are now freed to pursue their slice of the American dream without fear of losing coverage or facing a crippling bill.And it is the immeasurable joy of families in every part of this great nation, living happier, healthier lives together because they can finally receive the vital care they need.This is what change looks like.My gratitude tonight is profound. I am thankful for those in past generations whose heroic efforts brought this great goal within reach for our times. I am thankful for the members of Congress whose months of effort and brave votes made it possible to take this final step. But most of all, I am thankful for you.This day is not the end of this journey. Much hard work remains, and we have a solemn responsibility to do it right. But we can face that work together with the confidence of those who have moved mountains.Our journey began three years ago, driven by a shared belief that fundamental change is indeed still possible. We have worked hard together every day since to deliver on that belief.We have shared moments of tremendous hope, and we've faced setbacks and doubt. We have all been forced to ask if our politics had simply become too polarized and too short-sighted to meet the pressing challenges of our time. This struggle became a test of whether the American people could still rally together when the cause was right -- and actually create the change we believe in.Tonight, thanks to your mighty efforts, the answer is indisputable: Yes we can.Thank you,President Barack Obama
---http://davidsradiotv2000.blogspot.com
Wednesday, March 17, 2010
Senate passes jobs bill for Obama’s signature
Measure expected to be first of several in bid to lower unemployment rate
msnbc.com news services 3-17-2010
WASHINGTON - A package of tax breaks and highway spending cleared the U.S. Congress Wednesday, the first of what Democrats hope will be several efforts to bring down the 9.7 percent unemployment rate.
The Senate passed the measure by a vote of 68 to 29 and sent it to President Barack Obama, who is expected to sign it into law. Eleven Republicans joined Democrats in support of the measure.
Obama thanked lawmakers — and Republicans especially — in remarks from the Oval Office. He told reporters that the bill marks the beginning of Congress’ efforts to put the unemployed back to work.
With congressional elections looming in November, Democrats hope to show they are committed to reducing an unemployment rate that has remained stubbornly high even as the economy has begun to recover from the worst recession in decades.
"We have a long way to go — I'm not sugar coating where we are in this economy — but we are moving forward a step at a time and this is a very good step," said Democratic Senator Barbara Boxer.
None of their efforts is likely to approach the scale of last year's $863 billion stimulus package, which has created up to 2.1 million jobs but spurred a backlash among voters concerned about record budget deficits.
The bill sent to Obama includes a $13 billion payroll tax break for businesses that hire unemployed workers. Some economists and liberal lawmakers question that approach, saying it will only go to businesses that planned to expand anyway.
The bill also subsidizes state and local construction bonds and allocates $19.5 billion to shore up a highway-construction program and extend it through the end of the year.
The bill's costs, other than the highway fund, are offset by a crackdown on offshore tax shelters.
The bill won the backing of 11 Republicans, though many had opposed it in previous procedural votes.
Other bills pendingBoth the House and the Senate have passed larger job-creation bills but they have yet to resolve their differences.
The Senate passed a $140 billion package of tax breaks and unemployment aid last week, but House Democratic leaders have indicated they are likely to change it.
The bill closes several tax loopholes to bring down its price tag by roughly $37 billion, but Obama wants to use some of those loopholes to help pay for his massive healthcare overhaul.
The House passed a $154 billion jobs bill in December centered on increased highway spending and state aid, but the Senate has ignored it so far. House lawmakers may try to move those approaches separately or attach them to other bills.
Meanwhile, centrist Democrats want to cut spending or raise taxes elsewhere in the budget to avoid adding further to the budget deficit, which is projected to hit a record $1.5 trillion this fiscal year, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.
It could take several weeks to resolve the issue, as healthcare is expected to dominate the agenda before the spring break, which begins March 29. The House was scheduled to vote on a short-term extension of unemployment benefits to avoid disruption when they expire in coming weeks.
Separately, the House could vote later this week on a bill that would cut capital-gains taxes on certain small-business stocks and further expand subsidies for state and local construction bonds.
The AP and Reuters contributed to this report.
2-17 2010
msnbc.com news services 3-17-2010
WASHINGTON - A package of tax breaks and highway spending cleared the U.S. Congress Wednesday, the first of what Democrats hope will be several efforts to bring down the 9.7 percent unemployment rate.
The Senate passed the measure by a vote of 68 to 29 and sent it to President Barack Obama, who is expected to sign it into law. Eleven Republicans joined Democrats in support of the measure.
Obama thanked lawmakers — and Republicans especially — in remarks from the Oval Office. He told reporters that the bill marks the beginning of Congress’ efforts to put the unemployed back to work.
With congressional elections looming in November, Democrats hope to show they are committed to reducing an unemployment rate that has remained stubbornly high even as the economy has begun to recover from the worst recession in decades.
"We have a long way to go — I'm not sugar coating where we are in this economy — but we are moving forward a step at a time and this is a very good step," said Democratic Senator Barbara Boxer.
None of their efforts is likely to approach the scale of last year's $863 billion stimulus package, which has created up to 2.1 million jobs but spurred a backlash among voters concerned about record budget deficits.
The bill sent to Obama includes a $13 billion payroll tax break for businesses that hire unemployed workers. Some economists and liberal lawmakers question that approach, saying it will only go to businesses that planned to expand anyway.
The bill also subsidizes state and local construction bonds and allocates $19.5 billion to shore up a highway-construction program and extend it through the end of the year.
The bill's costs, other than the highway fund, are offset by a crackdown on offshore tax shelters.
The bill won the backing of 11 Republicans, though many had opposed it in previous procedural votes.
Other bills pendingBoth the House and the Senate have passed larger job-creation bills but they have yet to resolve their differences.
The Senate passed a $140 billion package of tax breaks and unemployment aid last week, but House Democratic leaders have indicated they are likely to change it.
The bill closes several tax loopholes to bring down its price tag by roughly $37 billion, but Obama wants to use some of those loopholes to help pay for his massive healthcare overhaul.
The House passed a $154 billion jobs bill in December centered on increased highway spending and state aid, but the Senate has ignored it so far. House lawmakers may try to move those approaches separately or attach them to other bills.
Meanwhile, centrist Democrats want to cut spending or raise taxes elsewhere in the budget to avoid adding further to the budget deficit, which is projected to hit a record $1.5 trillion this fiscal year, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.
It could take several weeks to resolve the issue, as healthcare is expected to dominate the agenda before the spring break, which begins March 29. The House was scheduled to vote on a short-term extension of unemployment benefits to avoid disruption when they expire in coming weeks.
Separately, the House could vote later this week on a bill that would cut capital-gains taxes on certain small-business stocks and further expand subsidies for state and local construction bonds.
The AP and Reuters contributed to this report.
2-17 2010
Friday, March 12, 2010
Obama lobbied on black unemployment, immigration
(Reuters) - President Barack Obama on Thursday faced pressure to help create jobs in African-American communities and deliver an immigration overhaul even as he tried to push healthcare reform across the finish line.
Steve Holland--mar 11, 2010
Back-to-back White House meetings with representatives from the black and Hispanic communities were evidence of the long list of priorities that challenge Obama and lawmakers ahead of November congressional elections.
African-American members of Congress said they told the president that job creation is critical to their communities and that federal resources should be directed toward workforce training, specifically for infrastructure projects.
Unemployment among black Americans was 15.8 percent in February, compared to the overall jobless rate of 9.7 percent nationally.
"We talked about the desperation that we're feeling in our communities throughout the country," Democratic Representative Barbara Lee, head of the Congressional Black Caucus, said on the White House driveway with a phalanx of other lawmakers beside her.
A White House statement issued after the meeting said participants agreed there are a number of ways to improve employment, such as summer youth employment, job training tied to apprenticeships, and ensuring fair access to contract jobs created through the federal economic stimulus.
Obama spent an hour meeting with officials from immigration advocacy groups who pressed him on an issue that did not feature highly in the president's first year, which was dominated by fixing the economy and healthcare.
Afterward, Obama pledged his "unwavering" commitment to getting an immigration deal.
"We leave the meeting today feeling hopeful," said Clarissa Martinez de Castro of the National Council of La Raza. "The president took an hour of his time to have a conversation, not to give a speech and that is significant."
She said that "there were commitments made about truly seeing this issue moving forward and the White House getting engaged to help in that process."
Afterward, Obama held talks with Democratic Senator Charles Schumer and Republican Senator Lindsey Graham to hear their ideas on a bipartisan approach to revamping the U.S. immigration system after the last attempt died in Congress in 2007.
"I look forward to reviewing their promising framework, and every American should applaud their efforts to reach across party lines and find common sense answers to one of our most vexing problems," Obama said in a statement after the meeting.
Graham said he and Schumer have explored several ideas on how to move ahead on the issue -- securing borders, moving toward a biometric Social Security card to ensure illegal workers cannot get jobs, creation of a temporary worker program and "a rational plan to deal with the millions of illegal immigrants already in the United States."
Since the 2007 debate, the Homeland Security Department has stepped up enforcement along the lengthy U.S. border with Mexico, completing 643 miles of fencing out of a planned 652 miles. It has added agents to the border and also cracked down on those who violate immigration law by overstaying their visas.
Besides concentrating on healthcare, Obama is also seeking steps to trigger U.S. job creation, increase oversight of Wall Street and revamp American energy practices.
(Additional reporting by Alister Bull and Jeff Mason; Editing by Cynthia Osterman)
Steve Holland--mar 11, 2010
Back-to-back White House meetings with representatives from the black and Hispanic communities were evidence of the long list of priorities that challenge Obama and lawmakers ahead of November congressional elections.
African-American members of Congress said they told the president that job creation is critical to their communities and that federal resources should be directed toward workforce training, specifically for infrastructure projects.
Unemployment among black Americans was 15.8 percent in February, compared to the overall jobless rate of 9.7 percent nationally.
"We talked about the desperation that we're feeling in our communities throughout the country," Democratic Representative Barbara Lee, head of the Congressional Black Caucus, said on the White House driveway with a phalanx of other lawmakers beside her.
A White House statement issued after the meeting said participants agreed there are a number of ways to improve employment, such as summer youth employment, job training tied to apprenticeships, and ensuring fair access to contract jobs created through the federal economic stimulus.
Obama spent an hour meeting with officials from immigration advocacy groups who pressed him on an issue that did not feature highly in the president's first year, which was dominated by fixing the economy and healthcare.
Afterward, Obama pledged his "unwavering" commitment to getting an immigration deal.
"We leave the meeting today feeling hopeful," said Clarissa Martinez de Castro of the National Council of La Raza. "The president took an hour of his time to have a conversation, not to give a speech and that is significant."
She said that "there were commitments made about truly seeing this issue moving forward and the White House getting engaged to help in that process."
Afterward, Obama held talks with Democratic Senator Charles Schumer and Republican Senator Lindsey Graham to hear their ideas on a bipartisan approach to revamping the U.S. immigration system after the last attempt died in Congress in 2007.
"I look forward to reviewing their promising framework, and every American should applaud their efforts to reach across party lines and find common sense answers to one of our most vexing problems," Obama said in a statement after the meeting.
Graham said he and Schumer have explored several ideas on how to move ahead on the issue -- securing borders, moving toward a biometric Social Security card to ensure illegal workers cannot get jobs, creation of a temporary worker program and "a rational plan to deal with the millions of illegal immigrants already in the United States."
Since the 2007 debate, the Homeland Security Department has stepped up enforcement along the lengthy U.S. border with Mexico, completing 643 miles of fencing out of a planned 652 miles. It has added agents to the border and also cracked down on those who violate immigration law by overstaying their visas.
Besides concentrating on healthcare, Obama is also seeking steps to trigger U.S. job creation, increase oversight of Wall Street and revamp American energy practices.
(Additional reporting by Alister Bull and Jeff Mason; Editing by Cynthia Osterman)
Friday, March 05, 2010
A meeting at Sylvia's
March 04, 2010
By Ben Smith POLITICO
Al Sharpton convened a meeting at the Harlem restaurant Sylvia's tonight at 8:30, where New York's black politicians are expected to discuss David Paterson's political future.
I ran into Sharpton just now, and asked him what he makes of the group's opinion.
"There's some for, some against, and where they'll fall I have no idea," he said. "I'm trying to stay neutral."
The fastest way out for Paterson will be if his last bulwark, senior black leaders, collapses. Everyone in the state is discussing his resignation in the light of a new report that he lied about free Yankee tickets, amid senior staff resignations, and amid a broad concern he can't govern.
The other source of chatter among New York pols: Who would be the Lieutenant Governor if the appointed officeholder, Richard Ravitch, ascends.
Sharpton ruled himself out.
"I didn't go national to come back to some local office," he said. "The downside isn't that I'd have to run. The downside is that I'd have to do it.
Categories: New York-Politico.com
--http://davidsradiotv2000.blogspot.com/
By Ben Smith POLITICO
Al Sharpton convened a meeting at the Harlem restaurant Sylvia's tonight at 8:30, where New York's black politicians are expected to discuss David Paterson's political future.
I ran into Sharpton just now, and asked him what he makes of the group's opinion.
"There's some for, some against, and where they'll fall I have no idea," he said. "I'm trying to stay neutral."
The fastest way out for Paterson will be if his last bulwark, senior black leaders, collapses. Everyone in the state is discussing his resignation in the light of a new report that he lied about free Yankee tickets, amid senior staff resignations, and amid a broad concern he can't govern.
The other source of chatter among New York pols: Who would be the Lieutenant Governor if the appointed officeholder, Richard Ravitch, ascends.
Sharpton ruled himself out.
"I didn't go national to come back to some local office," he said. "The downside isn't that I'd have to run. The downside is that I'd have to do it.
Categories: New York-Politico.com
--http://davidsradiotv2000.blogspot.com/
Sunday, February 28, 2010
Here's why February is Black History Month
BY DOROTHY JENKINS FIELDS
Special to The Miami Herald
Today is Feb. 28, 2010. It is the last day of the month in the shortest month of the year. This is the month Black History is celebrated throughout the United States. Each year the question is asked, why February
The short answer: Historian Carter G. Woodson, one of the founders of the Association of Negro Life and History (ANLH), selected the week that contains the birth dates of two people who played a prominent role in shaping black history: Abraham Lincoln, Feb. 12, and Frederick Douglass, Feb. 14. Lincoln (1809-1865), a white man and the 16th president of the United States, signed the Emancipation Proclamation to free black slaves in some states. Douglass (1817-1895), a black man, was an orator, journalist and anti-slavery leader of the 19th century.
Black History Month was first called Negro History Week. The first celebration was held in February 1926. Fifty years later, as part of the national Bicentennial celebration, the ANLH, now renamed The Association for the Study of African American Life and History (ASALH), voted to extend Negro History Week to a month and to rename it Black History Month.
The expanded answer explains Carter G. Woodson's (1875-1950) commitment to tell the story of his people, the black race. His dedication to documenting and publicizing the achievements of black people earned him the title ``Father of Black History.''
According to the ASALH, Woodson earned a Ph.D. in history from Harvard University in 1912 and later taught at Howard University. He was intensely concerned that the value of the achievements of black people was not being presented to students or the public. In 1916, Woodson established a scholarly publication, the Journal of Negro History.
An honorary member of Omega Psi Phi Fraternity, Woodson joined the organization's national program that originated the celebration of Negro History and Literature Week in 1921. A local member of Omega Psi Phi, retired Miami-Dade school administrator Virgil P. Rogers, recently wanted to determine Woodson's connection with the fraternity's already established celebration. Rogers found his answer in the book The History of the Omega Psi Phi Fraternity, 1911 to 1939: A Brotherhood of Negro College Men, which said the fraternity directed the celebration from 1921 until 1924.
In 1926, Woodson personally began directing the celebration, changed the name to Negro History Week and changed the time from April to February.
Woodson's dedication is acknowledged by Omega Psi Phi Fraternity on their official website as the earliest and most outspoken proponent for the study of black history. As a result of his efforts, black achievements are widely known.
The next time you hear someone ask why February chosen for Black History Month, give the short answer.
Dorothy Jenkins Fields, Ph.D., is a historian and founder of the Black Archives, History and Research Foundation of South Florida Inc. Send feedback, questions or news to djf@bellsouth.net.
Special to The Miami Herald
Today is Feb. 28, 2010. It is the last day of the month in the shortest month of the year. This is the month Black History is celebrated throughout the United States. Each year the question is asked, why February
The short answer: Historian Carter G. Woodson, one of the founders of the Association of Negro Life and History (ANLH), selected the week that contains the birth dates of two people who played a prominent role in shaping black history: Abraham Lincoln, Feb. 12, and Frederick Douglass, Feb. 14. Lincoln (1809-1865), a white man and the 16th president of the United States, signed the Emancipation Proclamation to free black slaves in some states. Douglass (1817-1895), a black man, was an orator, journalist and anti-slavery leader of the 19th century.
Black History Month was first called Negro History Week. The first celebration was held in February 1926. Fifty years later, as part of the national Bicentennial celebration, the ANLH, now renamed The Association for the Study of African American Life and History (ASALH), voted to extend Negro History Week to a month and to rename it Black History Month.
The expanded answer explains Carter G. Woodson's (1875-1950) commitment to tell the story of his people, the black race. His dedication to documenting and publicizing the achievements of black people earned him the title ``Father of Black History.''
According to the ASALH, Woodson earned a Ph.D. in history from Harvard University in 1912 and later taught at Howard University. He was intensely concerned that the value of the achievements of black people was not being presented to students or the public. In 1916, Woodson established a scholarly publication, the Journal of Negro History.
An honorary member of Omega Psi Phi Fraternity, Woodson joined the organization's national program that originated the celebration of Negro History and Literature Week in 1921. A local member of Omega Psi Phi, retired Miami-Dade school administrator Virgil P. Rogers, recently wanted to determine Woodson's connection with the fraternity's already established celebration. Rogers found his answer in the book The History of the Omega Psi Phi Fraternity, 1911 to 1939: A Brotherhood of Negro College Men, which said the fraternity directed the celebration from 1921 until 1924.
In 1926, Woodson personally began directing the celebration, changed the name to Negro History Week and changed the time from April to February.
Woodson's dedication is acknowledged by Omega Psi Phi Fraternity on their official website as the earliest and most outspoken proponent for the study of black history. As a result of his efforts, black achievements are widely known.
The next time you hear someone ask why February chosen for Black History Month, give the short answer.
Dorothy Jenkins Fields, Ph.D., is a historian and founder of the Black Archives, History and Research Foundation of South Florida Inc. Send feedback, questions or news to djf@bellsouth.net.
Thursday, February 25, 2010
NAACP Image Award to be given to former White House 'green czar'
February 24, 2010 11:35 a.m. EST
By Suzanne Malveaux
Washington (CNN) -- While Van Jones may have left the White House under a cloud, the NAACP says that's not his whole story.
The group considers him a pioneering hero for the environment and civil rights -- so much so that it is awarding him one of its highest honors Friday: an NAACP Image Award. It's a move that is just becoming public now, which is sure to stoke the fire from Jones critics.
Jones resigned in September 2009 from his position on the Council on Environmental Quality, under a firestorm of criticism over a petition he had signed and his comments about Republicans.
The Obama administration's "green czar" helped coordinate government agencies focused on delivering millions of green jobs to the ailing U.S. economy.
Jones said he was the victim of a "vicious smear campaign" based on "lies and distortions."
Benjamin Jealous, NAACP president and CEO, said he's not concerned about criticism the NAACP might face over honoring the controversial Jones.
"We care about getting the best ideas, the best minds and Van is one of them," Jealous said. "What should be controversial is we pushed one of the greatest minds to the side in this country when we needed him most."
In an opinion piece on CNN.com, Jealous calls Jones "an American treasure," and says he might be "the most misunderstood man in America."
"The real Van Jones story is about how a young leader became the father of the green jobs movement. In response to a longstanding jobs crisis in Oakland, California, he initiated the Oakland Green Jobs Corps, one of the nation's first job training programs targeting low-income people for work in the solar and green industries. This program has become a renowned model for numerous initiatives that are now up and running across America," Jealous says in the piece.
"In America, we ultimately judge people on what they are doing today for tomorrow, not for what they did yesterday."
In a White House statement announcing his resignation, Jones said, "On the eve of historic fights for health care and clean energy, opponents of reform have mounted a vicious smear campaign against me. They are using lies and distortions to distract and divide."
He came to Washington to "fight for others, not for myself. ... I cannot in good conscience ask my colleagues to expend precious time and energy defending or explaining my past. We need all hands on deck, fighting for the future," Jones said.
The decision followed an uproar over a petition Jones signed in 2004 calling for an investigation into whether government officials deliberately allowed the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks to occur.
In a statement during the the week before stepping down, Jones said of the petition on the Web site 911truth.org: "I do not agree with this statement and it certainly does not reflect my views now or ever."
An administration source said that Jones had not carefully reviewed the language in the petition before signing.
Jones has also come under fire for comments he made, also before his White House job, including those in a video that can be seen on YouTube. In it, he uses a vulgar expression to describe Republicans.
In 2005, Jones was quoted in the East Bay Express as describing the impact that the acquittals in the police beating case of Rodney King in 1992 had on him. "By August, I was a Communist," he says in the article, describing his sense of radicalization at the time.
In his statement, Jones said, "If I have offended anyone with statements I made in the past, I apologize."
One of the most prominent conservative voices condemning Jones was FOX TV host Glenn Beck.
Jones is a co-founder of colorofchange.org, a group that pressed advertisers to boycott Beck's program after Beck called Obama a racist.
Jones' appointment heightened criticisms of the appointment of so-called "czars," officially called presidential advisers, to positions within the administration that aren't subject to congressional oversight or Senate confirmation.
-http://davidsradiotv2000.blogspot.com
By Suzanne Malveaux
Washington (CNN) -- While Van Jones may have left the White House under a cloud, the NAACP says that's not his whole story.
The group considers him a pioneering hero for the environment and civil rights -- so much so that it is awarding him one of its highest honors Friday: an NAACP Image Award. It's a move that is just becoming public now, which is sure to stoke the fire from Jones critics.
Jones resigned in September 2009 from his position on the Council on Environmental Quality, under a firestorm of criticism over a petition he had signed and his comments about Republicans.
The Obama administration's "green czar" helped coordinate government agencies focused on delivering millions of green jobs to the ailing U.S. economy.
Jones said he was the victim of a "vicious smear campaign" based on "lies and distortions."
Benjamin Jealous, NAACP president and CEO, said he's not concerned about criticism the NAACP might face over honoring the controversial Jones.
"We care about getting the best ideas, the best minds and Van is one of them," Jealous said. "What should be controversial is we pushed one of the greatest minds to the side in this country when we needed him most."
In an opinion piece on CNN.com, Jealous calls Jones "an American treasure," and says he might be "the most misunderstood man in America."
"The real Van Jones story is about how a young leader became the father of the green jobs movement. In response to a longstanding jobs crisis in Oakland, California, he initiated the Oakland Green Jobs Corps, one of the nation's first job training programs targeting low-income people for work in the solar and green industries. This program has become a renowned model for numerous initiatives that are now up and running across America," Jealous says in the piece.
"In America, we ultimately judge people on what they are doing today for tomorrow, not for what they did yesterday."
In a White House statement announcing his resignation, Jones said, "On the eve of historic fights for health care and clean energy, opponents of reform have mounted a vicious smear campaign against me. They are using lies and distortions to distract and divide."
He came to Washington to "fight for others, not for myself. ... I cannot in good conscience ask my colleagues to expend precious time and energy defending or explaining my past. We need all hands on deck, fighting for the future," Jones said.
The decision followed an uproar over a petition Jones signed in 2004 calling for an investigation into whether government officials deliberately allowed the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks to occur.
In a statement during the the week before stepping down, Jones said of the petition on the Web site 911truth.org: "I do not agree with this statement and it certainly does not reflect my views now or ever."
An administration source said that Jones had not carefully reviewed the language in the petition before signing.
Jones has also come under fire for comments he made, also before his White House job, including those in a video that can be seen on YouTube. In it, he uses a vulgar expression to describe Republicans.
In 2005, Jones was quoted in the East Bay Express as describing the impact that the acquittals in the police beating case of Rodney King in 1992 had on him. "By August, I was a Communist," he says in the article, describing his sense of radicalization at the time.
In his statement, Jones said, "If I have offended anyone with statements I made in the past, I apologize."
One of the most prominent conservative voices condemning Jones was FOX TV host Glenn Beck.
Jones is a co-founder of colorofchange.org, a group that pressed advertisers to boycott Beck's program after Beck called Obama a racist.
Jones' appointment heightened criticisms of the appointment of so-called "czars," officially called presidential advisers, to positions within the administration that aren't subject to congressional oversight or Senate confirmation.
-http://davidsradiotv2000.blogspot.com
Monday, February 22, 2010
Schwarzenegger bashes 'tea party' movement. Is he right?
February 22, 2010 LATimes Now
The political world is buzzing after Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger slammed fellow Republicans and the "tea party" movement.
"I find it interesting that you have a lot of the Republicans running around and pushing back on the stimulus money and saying this doesn't create any new jobs," Schwarzenegger said on ABC's "This Week." "And then they go out and they do the photo ops and they are posing with the big check and they say, 'Isn't this great? Look what kind of money I provide here for the state.' ... It doesn't match up."
The Times' Michael Rothfeld also reports that the governor dismissed the "tea party" movement as "just an expression of anger and dissatisfaction." Schwarzenegger has a private meeting with President Obama scheduled for Monday, in which he is expected to seek more federal aid for California.
--http://davidsradiotv2000.blogspot.com
The political world is buzzing after Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger slammed fellow Republicans and the "tea party" movement.
"I find it interesting that you have a lot of the Republicans running around and pushing back on the stimulus money and saying this doesn't create any new jobs," Schwarzenegger said on ABC's "This Week." "And then they go out and they do the photo ops and they are posing with the big check and they say, 'Isn't this great? Look what kind of money I provide here for the state.' ... It doesn't match up."
The Times' Michael Rothfeld also reports that the governor dismissed the "tea party" movement as "just an expression of anger and dissatisfaction." Schwarzenegger has a private meeting with President Obama scheduled for Monday, in which he is expected to seek more federal aid for California.
--http://davidsradiotv2000.blogspot.com
Thursday, February 18, 2010
Ex-NYC police boss gets 4 years in prison
By JIM FITZGERALD (AP) – 2-18-2010
WHITE PLAINS, N.Y. — Former New York City police Commissioner Bernard Kerik, who was hailed as a hero alongside former Mayor Rudy Giuliani after the Sept. 11 terror attacks and nearly became chief of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, was sentenced to four years behind bars Thursday for eight felonies.
Kerik admitted in November that he lied to the White House, filed false taxes and committed other crimes.
"The fact that Mr. Kerik would use that event (9/11) for personal gain and aggrandizement is a dark place in the soul for me," said federal Judge Stephen Robinson.
An apologetic Kerik said before the sentence was pronounced: "Allow me to return to my wife and two little girls as soon as possible."
Federal guidelines indicated Kerik's sentence should be between 27 and 33 months in prison. Robinson said he went beyond the guidelines because they could not account for certain factors.
Kerik was "the chief law enforcement law enforcement officer for the biggest and grandest city this nation has," Robinson said. The crimes were committed "in the process of attempting to become a cabinet level position in the government of the United States."
The prosecutor, Michael Bosworth, said the misdeeds were "driven by arrogance, personal greed and professional ambition."
Kerik will be allowed to surrender voluntarily on May 17; the prison has not been chosen yet.
Kerik, 54, has already been ordered to pay $188,000 in restitution and to pay past-due taxes and penalties on six years of tax returns.
"...I'd like to apologize to the American people for the mistakes I've made and for which I have just accepted responsibility," Kerik said outside the courthouse. "As history is written, I can only hope that I will be judged for 30 years of service I've given to the country and the city of New York."
"...Although this has been the most challenging period of my life ... it will not diminish my love and admiration for this country, which it has been one of my greatest privileges to serve."
Just before pleading guilty, Kerik spent three weeks in the Westchester County Jail for releasing secret pretrial information. While there, he was voluntarily admitted to the psychiatric ward for observation because of stress. Doctors concluded he did not need mental care.
After admitting his crimes, Kerik was freed pending sentencing. He had to post a $1.5 million bond, wear an electronic monitor and generally stay inside his home in Franklin Lakes, N.J.
In presentencing memos to the judge, the defense and prosecution painted sharply different portraits of Kerik.
The defense spoke of his bleak upbringing, his steely leadership after the terror attacks, his remorse and the debt he has incurred to defend himself. It supplied letters of support from his son, fellow police officers, a priest and a man who lost two sons on Sept. 11.
There was no letter from Giuliani.
The prosecution memo said Kerik had "shamelessly exploited" the terror attack, had shamed his gold shield and might flee if he weren't sent to prison right away.
Kerik was Giuliani's police commissioner when New York City was attacked, and he was praised worldwide for his leadership. At Giuliani's urging, he was nominated to the top Homeland Security post in 2004. It was the peak of his fast-rising career — as corruption allegations began to mount.
Kerik said in court that while being vetted for that position, he falsely denied that he had any financial dealings with anyone doing business with New York City. He said he also lied when he claimed he had specifically refused payments that were offered.
In truth, he said, he had accepted renovations of his Bronx apartment from a company seeking city work.
Those apartment renovations were the focus of the original corruption charge, which alleged that Kerik accepted the renovations in exchange for vouching for the company. Kerik did not admit that.
WHITE PLAINS, N.Y. — Former New York City police Commissioner Bernard Kerik, who was hailed as a hero alongside former Mayor Rudy Giuliani after the Sept. 11 terror attacks and nearly became chief of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, was sentenced to four years behind bars Thursday for eight felonies.
Kerik admitted in November that he lied to the White House, filed false taxes and committed other crimes.
"The fact that Mr. Kerik would use that event (9/11) for personal gain and aggrandizement is a dark place in the soul for me," said federal Judge Stephen Robinson.
An apologetic Kerik said before the sentence was pronounced: "Allow me to return to my wife and two little girls as soon as possible."
Federal guidelines indicated Kerik's sentence should be between 27 and 33 months in prison. Robinson said he went beyond the guidelines because they could not account for certain factors.
Kerik was "the chief law enforcement law enforcement officer for the biggest and grandest city this nation has," Robinson said. The crimes were committed "in the process of attempting to become a cabinet level position in the government of the United States."
The prosecutor, Michael Bosworth, said the misdeeds were "driven by arrogance, personal greed and professional ambition."
Kerik will be allowed to surrender voluntarily on May 17; the prison has not been chosen yet.
Kerik, 54, has already been ordered to pay $188,000 in restitution and to pay past-due taxes and penalties on six years of tax returns.
"...I'd like to apologize to the American people for the mistakes I've made and for which I have just accepted responsibility," Kerik said outside the courthouse. "As history is written, I can only hope that I will be judged for 30 years of service I've given to the country and the city of New York."
"...Although this has been the most challenging period of my life ... it will not diminish my love and admiration for this country, which it has been one of my greatest privileges to serve."
Just before pleading guilty, Kerik spent three weeks in the Westchester County Jail for releasing secret pretrial information. While there, he was voluntarily admitted to the psychiatric ward for observation because of stress. Doctors concluded he did not need mental care.
After admitting his crimes, Kerik was freed pending sentencing. He had to post a $1.5 million bond, wear an electronic monitor and generally stay inside his home in Franklin Lakes, N.J.
In presentencing memos to the judge, the defense and prosecution painted sharply different portraits of Kerik.
The defense spoke of his bleak upbringing, his steely leadership after the terror attacks, his remorse and the debt he has incurred to defend himself. It supplied letters of support from his son, fellow police officers, a priest and a man who lost two sons on Sept. 11.
There was no letter from Giuliani.
The prosecution memo said Kerik had "shamelessly exploited" the terror attack, had shamed his gold shield and might flee if he weren't sent to prison right away.
Kerik was Giuliani's police commissioner when New York City was attacked, and he was praised worldwide for his leadership. At Giuliani's urging, he was nominated to the top Homeland Security post in 2004. It was the peak of his fast-rising career — as corruption allegations began to mount.
Kerik said in court that while being vetted for that position, he falsely denied that he had any financial dealings with anyone doing business with New York City. He said he also lied when he claimed he had specifically refused payments that were offered.
In truth, he said, he had accepted renovations of his Bronx apartment from a company seeking city work.
Those apartment renovations were the focus of the original corruption charge, which alleged that Kerik accepted the renovations in exchange for vouching for the company. Kerik did not admit that.
Tuesday, February 16, 2010
Zuma Asks for Debate as Youth, Unions Want Mine Nationalization
February 14, 2010, 05:10 PM EST
By Mike Cohen
Feb. 14 (Bloomberg) -- South African President Jacob Zuma called for a debate on the ruling African National Congress’s youth wing’s demands that the government take over mines, and said the party has no policy on such nationalizations.
“You can’t say because you have views today, this is now policy,” Zuma said in an interview broadcast today by the state-owned South African Broadcasting Corp. “Let the issue be discussed. I think people sensationalize the issue. There isn’t any policy that has been adopted by the ANC” on nationalization, he said.
On Feb. 2, Mines Minister Susan Shabangu told reporters nationalization would not happen in her lifetime. South Africa is the world’s biggest producer of platinum, chrome, vanadium and manganese, the third-biggest gold miner and the largest source of coal for European power plants.
Unions and the ANC youth league argue that nationalization became ANC policy when it adopted a document known as the Freedom Charter in 1955. While the ANC never officially distanced itself from the charter, it didn’t implement several of its resolutions.
“There is no shortcut to policy in the ANC,” and any changes must be considered at a policy conference and adopted at the party’s national conference, said Zuma. He won control of the ANC in December 2007 from then-President Thabo Mbeki with backing from the unions. Zuma was inaugurated on May 9 as South Africa’s fourth post-apartheid president.
--Editors: Keith Campbell, Dick Schumacher.
To contact the reporter on this story: Mike Cohen in Cape Town at +27-82-4549620 or mcohen21@bloomberg.net.
By Mike Cohen
Feb. 14 (Bloomberg) -- South African President Jacob Zuma called for a debate on the ruling African National Congress’s youth wing’s demands that the government take over mines, and said the party has no policy on such nationalizations.
“You can’t say because you have views today, this is now policy,” Zuma said in an interview broadcast today by the state-owned South African Broadcasting Corp. “Let the issue be discussed. I think people sensationalize the issue. There isn’t any policy that has been adopted by the ANC” on nationalization, he said.
On Feb. 2, Mines Minister Susan Shabangu told reporters nationalization would not happen in her lifetime. South Africa is the world’s biggest producer of platinum, chrome, vanadium and manganese, the third-biggest gold miner and the largest source of coal for European power plants.
Unions and the ANC youth league argue that nationalization became ANC policy when it adopted a document known as the Freedom Charter in 1955. While the ANC never officially distanced itself from the charter, it didn’t implement several of its resolutions.
“There is no shortcut to policy in the ANC,” and any changes must be considered at a policy conference and adopted at the party’s national conference, said Zuma. He won control of the ANC in December 2007 from then-President Thabo Mbeki with backing from the unions. Zuma was inaugurated on May 9 as South Africa’s fourth post-apartheid president.
--Editors: Keith Campbell, Dick Schumacher.
To contact the reporter on this story: Mike Cohen in Cape Town at +27-82-4549620 or mcohen21@bloomberg.net.
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